


Lorelei in the Menagerie

by BelladonnaLee



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Horror, M/M, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2013-10-31
Packaged: 2017-12-29 15:02:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1006791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BelladonnaLee/pseuds/BelladonnaLee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I think my dead son is haunting the manor," says Draco when Harry runs into him in an antique book shop. Driven by yearning and suspicion, Harry offers his help and is drawn into a web of secrets and half-forgotten nightmare.</p><p><b>Featured Book:</b> <span class="u">The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection</span></p>
            </blockquote>





	Lorelei in the Menagerie

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Writcraft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writcraft/gifts).



> Happy Hallowe'en! Here is a sort-of horror story to celebrate the occasion. Thank you very much to Jo for being my beta and for putting up with my last-minute requests. Also, thank you to the mods for putting up with my lateness. Enjoy!
> 
>  **Mods' Notes:** For major warnings (containing spoilers to the story), please check the notes at the end.

  
[](http://lost-in-hogwarts.deviantart.com/art/Comis-The-Dark-Forces-A-Guide-to-Self-Protection-290609914)   
Cover Design by lost-in-hogwarts  


The boy was lost in the woods: the Witching Woods, as local folks called it. No one in the town knew who invented the name, but most people believed that strange creatures haunted the forest. There was no consensus as to what the said creatures were: werewolves, demons, witches, or some unknown monsters. For hours the boy had been wandering about, but he saw neither monsters nor animals.

The rain came down and dampened much of the boy's spirit. Seeking shelter beneath an ancient oak tree, he peered at the leaden sky through the foliage. Although he was anxious to leave the forest before the sky darkened, nighttime would not arrive for several hours. Tired, hungry and cold, he sat down with his back to the tree trunk and hugged his legs.

His parents were probably looking for him right now; at least, that was what he hoped. When he thought about his parents, he bit his lip and hugged himself more tightly. His parents were filing for a divorce. While they claimed that they had his best interest in mind, no one bothered to ask him what he wanted. When his mother introduced her _friend_ to him, he had enough of their selfishness.

He took out a compass from his pocket. The needle had been spinning non-stop from the moment he entered the forest, though he took no heed of it until he had lost the way. If he had taken a leaf from Hansel and Gretel and left pebbles along the way, he would at least be able to find his way home. Heaving a sigh, he put away the compass and stared into the rain.

The forest seemed a little less intimidating than before; nevertheless, it was still a lonely place. Other than the pitter-patter of rain, he heard no other sound. In an attempt to boost his courage, he sang one of his favourite songs, a pop song he had heard on a CD his friend had lent to him.

The air smelled of damp wood and some other fragrance he could not name; somehow, the scent reminded him of home. Resting his chin on his knees, he closed his eyes and was gradually lulled to sleep by the murmur of rain.

As he was about to doze off, a voice snapped him awake. Sitting bolt upright, he squinted into the distance, his heart pounding in his chest like a hopping rabbit. Someone was singing a song he did not recognise. He relaxed for a moment before he tensed up once more. Although the singer sounded human, there was no guarantee that he was safe.

Looking around for a weapon, he found a broken tree branch that was a little thicker than a pencil. It was better than nothing, he thought. He got up, grabbed the branch and inched away from the tree.

A dark figure emerged from behind another oak tree, startling the boy out of his wits. With feline grace it prowled towards him, but it stopped within several paces from him. When he recognised what it was, the boy felt relief wash over him.

"Hello. Are you from the other side of the forest?" There was nothing but silence from the figure, and the boy began to fidget in unease. "Do you know the way back to town? No? Can I use the phone at your house then?" More silence. "Are you lost as well?"

The boy's voice fell into the void and was annihilated by the rain. Dark eyes stared at him without blinking. Fear gripped the boy by the throat. Clutching the useless branch with shaky hands, he stepped away from the figure. When the figure opened its mouth, the boy froze, his mind eaten away by feverish dreams until all that remained was the sound of rain.

* * * * * * *

In the antique book shop tucked away in an inconspicuous corner, a barricade of books and tomes smothered the bustle of the city outside. The air smelled of age and dust; tables and shelves formed crooked alleys for customers to traverse. After browsing around in the shop for the past hour, Harry Potter found himself quite lost in this maze.

The quest for Hermione's birthday present turned out to be more difficult than he had imagined. _Enchant the Enchanted: How to Make and Break a Contract with the Elfin Folk_ was out of the question, for his best friend would not stand for what she regarded as slavery. _The Akashic Records_ could be a good choice, but an even more omniscient Hermione would do more harm than good. Once he reached the end of the row, he pulled out the most promising looking volume on the shelf: _Encyclopaedia of Rune Magic_. He frowned; he was certain he had seen a copy of the book at Hermione's house.

A sigh escaped Harry's mouth. When he rounded the corner, he was just in time to see a blond man vanish behind one of the shelves. His heart stopped dead. Before he registered what he was doing, his legs led him towards the direction the figure had disappeared into. After brushing past an old wizard who was cradling a coverless book as if it were his child, Harry located the person he was looking for.

In one of the nooks in the shop, an ashen-faced Draco Malfoy was leafing through a battered-looking book. His gaze darted from line to line; his finger hovered over the page; his lips pressed together as though the facility of speech was stolen from him. Enveloped in black and grey, his figure seemed thinner than Harry remembered. Had it already been a year since the day he last saw Draco?

As yearning collided with reason, Harry wetted his lips and stepped out of the shadow. "I didn't know you are back in England."

The book was snapped shut like the jaws of a beast. Draco's frozen grey eyes stared at Harry for a moment before the ice melted away. "I did say I'd come back," Draco said.

"Yes, you did say that." Harry noted the title of the book in Draco's hand: _The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection_. The ink black cover stirred his memory; it was one of the textbooks they had used at Hogwarts. "Are you brushing up on your DADA skill?"

Wariness seeped through Draco's defence, for the current head of the Malfoy family had more secrets to hide than most people. "You could say that," he muttered. "Have you seen Astoria lately?"

Memory of a certain incident rushed back into Harry's mind: the torture chamber of a demented wizard, blood flowing down Astoria's legs, and the mangled remains of the assailant hanging from a tree. With a resilience that was pragmatism in disguise, Astoria had maintained that quiet smile of hers in spite of what happened. Her ex-husband, on the other hand, did not fare so well. 

Harry studied Draco's profile, all jutting bones and sharp angles stretched over pale skin. "I ran into her several times in the Ministry. She's now working as an independent information broker. It's not much different from being an investigator."

"But you haven't worked with her since she left the Aurors." No longer looking at Harry, Draco returned the book to the shelf and took down a heavy tome. Long fingers flipped through the pages, stirring up dust and a whiff of mustiness unique to old books.

"Yeah." Harry tore his gaze away from Draco and scanned the titles on the shelves. All the books in this section dealt with defence against the dark arts. "You aren't here because you want to satisfy some morbid academic curiosity, are you?"

"How observant of you." Draco pushed the book back to its proper place. "If I were to tell you everything," he ran his hand along the books on the shelf, yet his eyes were fixed upon Harry, "what are you going to do?"

Avoiding Draco's gaze, Harry watched dust particles float beneath the lamplight, drifting without meaning, like the feelings that lingered for no reason other than to elicit regret and longing. "I'll help you."

"You haven't changed at all," Draco whispered, prompting Harry to look at him. There was a wry curve on Draco's lips; in the next beat, the ghost of a smile vanished.

"Ever since I got back, I can sometimes hear a child's voice talking or singing in my head. In the morning, I'd wake up in another part of the manor, even though I went to bed the previous night in my own bedroom. Something in the house would disappear or be misplaced, but I have no memory of moving it around." There was a pause. "I think my dead son is haunting the manor."

* * * * * * *

The Malfoy Manor had lost some of its splendour during Draco's year-long travel. Hedges grew wild and spread their many limbs outward to seize more territory. The smell of withered flowers and dead leaves choked the air. The rain further brought out the dilapidated state of the garden. Not pausing to examine the garden further, Harry ran with Draco down the long driveway and into the house.

The interior of the mansion was as cold and gloomy as Harry remembered. When unpleasant memories threatened to creep up on him, he shook himself free of their clutch and followed Draco further into the house. Echoes of their footsteps shattered the hollow silence; portraits scrutinised them with those same grey eyes that the current family head had inherited. A spider crawled across one of the doors as though standing guard over the treasure hidden within.

Harry turned away from the spider and stared at Draco's back. "Have you asked the portraits if they knew what's going on?"

"I did, but they wouldn't talk to me." Draco took out his wand and cleared away the cobweb in the corner. "Sorry about the mess. I just got back several days ago, and I didn't have time to tidy up."

Several years ago, Draco's parents moved to a country where their infamy would not pursue them. After his divorce with Astoria, Draco was the sole occupant of Malfoy Manor. In truth, the estate was too large for a single wizard to maintain by himself.

"If you want, I can ask Kreacher if he wanted to help out in the manor for a few days."

"I'll think about it." Draco stopped in front of a pair of double doors, which slid open without a sound. "There's something I want to show you."

Behind the doors was a beautiful private library. Interspersed between mahogany bookshelves were arched windows that looked out to the garden in the rain. A fireplace adorned with a marble mantelpiece served as the main attraction in the reading area. Rows of shelves extended to the other end of the library, where a cast iron spiral staircase led to the upper level. A large fresco across the ceiling depicted various mythological scenes taking place under the opalescent sky.

Stacks of books were piled onto every table and chair; more ended up on the floor. His curiosity perked, Harry opened one of the books on the table and watched a wizard transfigure a young woman into a laurel tree. "You've been studying hard."

"It wasn't me." There was no amusement in Draco's voice. "It was like this by the time I came back to England several days ago. I don't know who or what it was, but it's impossible for an intruder to break into the manor while I was away. There are many spells protecting this place."

"Maybe your parents came back while you were away, and they wanted to look up something? Or maybe you forgot to put the books away before you went on your trip?"

Draco cast Harry a cool glance. "My memory isn't so bad that I couldn't remember taking out several hundred books to set up a barricade. I've sent my parents an owl, though they haven't replied yet. Come on." He led the way down the aisle to the far end of the library.

Standing in front of the spiral staircase, Draco whispered, " _Tabula rasa_." For a moment, nothing happened. When they climbed the stairs to the upper level, however, a new passageway had appeared between two sets of shelves, leading into further darkness. After conjuring a lantern to his aid, Draco stepped into the gaping hole; Harry trailed after him in silence.

The air in the stone passageway was as stagnant as a pool of stale water. While Harry listened to his and Draco's footfalls, he thought about what Draco had told him so far. Although it was not unusual for an old house such as Malfoy Manor to be haunted by a dark creature or two, what disturbed him most of all was Draco's claim that his son was haunting the manor: a dead foetus could not become a ghost.

"What makes you think it's your son's doing? It could be something else."

"Maybe." Draco stopped and turned around, his face betraying a hint of vulnerability. "The voice in my head keeps singing the same song that only someone from the Malfoy family would know. It's a song we sing to our heir when he's in his mother's womb. My father sang to me a long time ago, and I sang to my unborn son." A shadow passed across his countenance. "Do you think I've gone mad?"

Harry was about to disagree when he changed his mind. What Draco needed right now was his genuine opinion, not baseless reassurance. "I don't know. But a ghost can't pull out all those books."

A moment later, Harry and Draco arrived at a chamber that might have once been an alchemist's workshop. Dust had settled on every surface in the room like moss, though there were signs of recent disturbance. Several books lay about on the shelves; jars and bottles with half-peeled labels filled the cabinet; beakers and cylinders were attached to a complex network of gadgets and tubes on the table. In the corner, a staircase spiralled upwards to the upper floor.

"This was my grandfather's workshop before he passed away. I suppose you can say he dabbled in things: potions, alchemy, politics, finance. No one uses this room anymore though." Draco climbed the stairs. "Yesterday morning, I woke up on the upper floor and discovered something."

After hanging the lantern to the hook nailed to the wall, Draco stepped aside for Harry to look around. The room was bare except for the object standing in the middle of the room. A full length mirror with a tarnished brass frame dominated the space like a despondent queen in her prison, and the twin brass snakes that adorned the top of the frame was like a crown she wore.

When Harry took a closer look, he realised it was not a mirror at all, for it did not show a reflection of him or Draco. Inside the frame was a bare room that could be mistaken for an extension of the chamber they were in. An empty trunk lay open on the floor and taunted them with the prospect of a secret it once kept. Bemused, Harry reached for the trunk; his fingers met cold glass.

"It's probably a portal, but I haven't found a way to get inside yet." Draco joined Harry in front of the framed glass. "I hadn't been in this room since I went to Hogwarts, and I was sure there was nothing in here back then. I don't recall seeing this thing anywhere in the manor before either."

"Does your father know about this?" Harry looked behind the frame, but there was nothing there. He touched the glass again, feeling for seams or cracks that could guide him through the barrier.

"I wrote about it in the letter." Crossing his arms, Draco fixed a sullen gaze at the trunk inside the glass. "Perhaps it's not related to what's happening at all."

"But you think there's something inside the trunk. Either someone came and took something out, or the thing inside managed to escape by itself." Harry frowned. Even someone as prone to wild fancy as he was found the idea far-fetched.

"I don't know. Like I said, maybe it's nothing." Hesitation lingered on Draco's visage before desperation seeped through his armour. "I want to know what's going on, but I need you to be my eyes and ears. Will you stay in the manor tonight?"

Staring into Draco's eyes that seemed clouded with disquietude, Harry nodded.

* * * * * * *

The rain continued to fall, but the boy did not feel cold. Wandering in the woods by himself, he sang his favourite song. Every tree looked the same to him, but he had no trouble navigating in the woods: the forest was his playground. Like a ghost he moved amongst the trees, gliding behind the trunk and gliding out again in a one-man game of hide-and-seek. As the sound of rain filled his ear, hunger dominated his consciousness.

There was no sign of living animal in the forest; there rarely was. Food was hard to come by, particularly the kind of food he craved, but once he had eaten, the gnawing pain inside him would subside for some time. The village on the other side of the forest had food aplenty, but he had learnt that he must be cautious lest he be seen. If he were caught, he would be eaten.

Coming upon a clearing, he looked up at the pale sky. When rain drops fell onto his face, he blinked. Nightfall would not come for some time. Disappointed, he drifted away from the clearing and began to sing. No one came to him—not yet. The person he loved most in the world never answered his summon during daytime; therefore, he prayed for night to arrive soon. For now, however, he must eat.

* * * * * * *

Every lamp in the library was lit, but the light could not chase away the night that was lurking in corners and alcoves. With a stack of books floating behind him, Draco tried to put each book back to its proper place. It was a tedious task, but he pressed on without complaint.

Once Draco was done with one of the books, he took the next book from the pile and moved on to the next aisle. When he flipped through the book, he realised it was one of those psychology books Astoria was fond of; the title had led him to believe it was a book on Legilimency. As he stared at the abstract art on the cover, he remembered Astoria once asked if a foetus had dreams while it was inside the mother's womb.

"Need any help?"

Looking up, Draco found Harry leaning against the shelf, watching him with a look he could not decipher. Once he had recovered his wits, he banished the book back to the table. "You won't be of much help unless you are a librarian or your name is Hermione Granger."

Harry smiled in the same bashful way Draco remembered from their shared past. "Try me."

"If you insist." With a flick of his wand, Draco sent several books flying towards Harry, who scrambled around to collect them before they hit the floor. "These books belong to the section over there." He waved a hand at the other end of the shelf. "They are in alphabetical order, or you can stuff them in any empty space you can find."

"Doesn't that defeat the purpose of organising the books in the first place?" Harry took his pile of books to the other end of the aisle and got to work. "Is there any information in here that can tell us more about the portal?"

"I doubt it. Besides, it'll take weeks to look through every book in the library. I tried the diaries and letters left behind by my father and my grandfather, but I couldn't find anything."

When Harry said nothing in response, Draco became quiet as well. For some time, they sorted through the books in companionable silence. At length, as though unable to keep quiet anymore, Harry asked, "What does the song you were talking about sound like?"

After taking a deep breath, Draco opened his mouth and began to sing. Even though he had not sung the song since Astoria's miscarriage, he had no trouble recalling the melody or the words. The song had been playing on and off inside his head like a curse, a mockery of all mockeries.

Draco was aware of Harry's gaze, but he did not turn around to look. Echoes of ghosts filled his mind, connecting him to those who came before him and those who will come after him. Once more he saw the dead foetus curled up inside the urn—his child sleeping for eternity in the ceramic womb.

_"The Hatter doesn't taste good at all. I thought we could have a mad tea party. I want to see you soon..."_

"I should prepare some food for you. Would bread and cold meats be all right? I can heat up some soup as well." Abandoning his task, Draco took the stack of books back to the reading area and headed for the door. Before Harry could say anything, he added, "I'll be fine on my own."

Alone in the library, Harry tightened his lips and carried the books to the table. It was unusual for Draco to make such an abrupt shift from one topic to the next; the song must have touched a wound. Even though Harry did not understand the lyrics, the wistful melody and the softness of Draco's voice told him everything he needed to know.

* * * * * * *

After a simple dinner and a fruitless search in the manor, Harry set up a ward in Draco's room. If anything were to enter or exit the room, whether through the door or the window or the walls, he would be alerted. Before Draco retired for the night, he looked as though he wanted to say something to Harry; in the end, he smiled a bitter smile and said _good night_.

The door clicked shut, and Harry, raising his wand, cast the final spell on the door. Satisfied with his work, he went to the room next door, sat down by the door and settled in for a long night of surveillance.

Behind closed door, Draco, lying on the bed in the dark, was lost in reminiscence. The reunion with his old classmate had stirred up too many skeletons and ghosts from his past. Heaving a sigh, he closed his eyes and let his memories swallow him whole.

Dead leaves scattered like ashes around the willowy Astoria on the day Draco proposed to her. The sprig of lavender trembled in her hand after they found out she was pregnant. The whiteness of the sheet burnt his eyes on the day Astoria woke up in the hospital after the hellish ordeal. Astoria's hazel eyes glistened in the twilight when she told him to be happy and to let her go.

The scene changed. Guilt coloured Harry's face on the day Astoria was taken by the serial killer the Aurors had been trying to capture. Anguish flickered in Harry's eyes on the night he demanded to know if Draco had killed the dark wizard. Wistfulness marred Harry's smile when Draco told him he would be leaving England soon.

When Draco found himself standing in front of an empty picture frame, he realised he was no longer remembering: he was dreaming. Within the picture frame was a tiny figure with blond hair and grey eyes, clad in the tailored jacket and shorts Draco once wore for a family portrait when he was little. The child was singing the lullaby every Malfoy knew by heart—praying, yearning, and calling for the father who will watch over him. His unborn son, his dead son. As the child reached out for him, Draco reached out for the child like a reflection.

* * * * * * *

Before Harry heard the sound of the doorknob being turned, he felt the invisible string coiling around his finger tighten—a sign that the ward had opened up. Cloaking himself beneath the Disillusionment Charm, he peeked out the door and saw a dark shape walk out of Draco's room. Silent as a hunter on the prowl, he followed Draco into the dimly lit corridor—left, right, down, forward and out the front door.

There was nothing but darkness and rain beneath the hazy red sky; silhouettes of trees and plants swayed against the wind. Like a man in a trance Draco walked barefoot to the front gates of the manor, as though unaware of the rain beating down on him. As Harry trailed after him, a string of music, lurking beneath the murmur of rain, trickled into his ear. At first, he thought Draco was singing; in the next beat, he realised the voice was more shrill than Draco's. It was a child's voice. 

Beyond the gates stood a tiny figure about the height of a primary school child. While Harry wondered what a child was doing in a place that was sealed off from Muggles, Draco opened the gates, conjured a cloak out of thin air, secured it around the figure, and carried the whole bundle back to the house. At least one mystery was solved, Harry thought as he walked behind Draco up the steps.

Without bothering to turn on the lamp, Draco took his charge into the bathroom and closed the door. The sound of running water went on for a while before splashing sound reached Harry's ear. Not wishing to be discovered by whatever Draco had taken into the manor, Harry waited outside and listened. It was a strange experience; what Draco was doing seemed to be no more than that of a caring father taking his child to the bath after the child got drenched in the rain.

Some time later, the sound of water stopped, and the door swung open. Draco appeared to be carrying something into the bedroom. After putting his burden on the bed, he rummaged in the wardrobe for a while and returned to the bed with a piece of clothing. As Harry watched Draco help the child get dressed, he began to wonder—foolish as his rationality believed—if the child was indeed Draco's son. Even if the child Astoria bore had survived, he would be no more than a year old. Unless Draco had a child in an earlier relationship...

Pulling the cover over the child, Draco sat on the bed and ran his hand over the child's head, murmuring words Harry could not hear. Just when he thought the child was asleep, the child said in a voice resembling that of a boy, "You won't sing anymore?" Draco did not reply.

Harry lost track of time as he observed the surreal scene between a father and a child. At length, Draco stretched himself on the bed and moved no more; it appeared both he and the boy were at last asleep. Mindful not to wake them, Harry crept to the bedside and lit his wand, illuminating two sleeping faces that were as dissimilar to each other as can be.

Dark feral eyes snapped open and glared at Harry. Startled out of his wits, Harry took a step back, his mouth moving of its own accord to pronounce the first syllable of a name. At the same time, the child bared his sharp teeth like an animal and hissed.

Harry woke with a start. While he stared at the canopy, he touched his throat. To his relief, he felt neither blood nor pain. As soon as his tension evaporated, disorientation took hold of him. Unable to remember where he was, he sat up on the bed and examined his surroundings.

A wardrobe of classical design stood against one wall. A small table and a comfortable looking armchair made up the tea area by the window. The bed itself was a study of fine craftsmanship from the Victorian era. Both the velvet curtains and the shimmering bedspread were of the highest quality. In the pale morning light, the combination of mahogany furniture, dark velvet and grey damask wallpaper had transformed the room of tasteful antiquity into a solemn affair.

Remembering he was in Malfoy Manor, Harry shot out of bed, ran to Draco's room and pounded on the door. When no one answered, he let himself in; no one was in the room. A towel was left on the floor, reminding him that what he had witnessed last night was not a dream. He had seen the mysterious little guest Draco had invited into the manor, yet somehow he could not recall the boy's face.

Swallowing his panic, he ran down the corridor, drew out his wand and muttered, _"Homenum Revelio."_ The tail of the net he had cast across the manor tugged at him, pulling him towards the inner garden at the back of the house.

Once upon a time, the inner garden would have been a sanctuary for the weary, but what remained now was a hybrid of wilderness and order. The outline of the planting could still be glimpsed in the flower beds; however, wilted plants and yellow grass gave the place a forlorn look like a childhood memory defiled by decay and death.

Kneeling in front of a flower bed was Draco, whose hair and clothes were dampened by morning dew. Glad to have found the man, Harry walked closer and soon noticed something was wrong. A hole had been dug in the flower bed; poppies were plucked out of their soil and scattered about like funeral flowers. A ceramic urn caked with mud was broken into several pieces, its inside empty. Draco was running his bloodied thumb over the jagged edge of a fragment, as though searching in desperation for clues that were not there.

With a vacant look Draco stared at Harry, his face grey and his eyes dead, a hollow shell that seemed ready to fall apart at the slightest touch. Harry had seen Draco like this before, and yet he could do nothing for him, not even offer words of comfort. Suppressing the urge to take the man in his arms, Harry crouched beside Draco and called his name.

A gleam of recognition appeared in Draco's eyes. Chapped lips moved for several beats before a raspy voice came out. "Tell me everything."

* * * * * * *

Half an hour later, Harry and Draco congregated in the kitchen for breakfast: tea and toasts with butter or jam. For a kitchen equipped to serve up a banquet, the only appliances that had seen some use were the stove and the oven. "I can boil you an egg if you want," Draco offered, but Harry shook his head.

Over a pot of Earl Grey tea, Harry told Draco what happened last night. Doubt, bemusement and indignation passed across Draco's face in quick succession. "From what you've said, it looked like I was placed under the Imperius Curse by a child?"

"Probably. Assuming you weren't sleepwalking, that is. He was waiting by the gates as if he knew you would come down. After that, when I tried to see his face, something happened. I was off guard. The next thing I remember was waking up next door in the morning." Harry drank some tea to wet his lips. "He might look like a human child, but there's something strange about him."

Raising an eyebrow, Draco poured himself another cup of tea. Although he appeared to have recovered his composure, Harry suspected he was not as calm as he seemed. "He could be a shapeshifter with the ability to control minds, or a witch or wizard disguised as a child. Maybe someone used him as a bait to get inside the manor."

"I don't know." Wild dark eyes and beast-like fangs sprang out at Harry from the depth of his memory. Even though a fire was burning in the stove, he felt a chill inside him. The boy had reminded him of a half-forgotten nightmare from a long time ago, a nightmare he thought he could never wake from. "You don't remember anything at all?"

Draco stared at the cup as though considering how best to answer the question. "What you said I did? No. I did hear someone sing in my dream, but it might just be in my head." Deep in thoughts, he raised the cup to his lips. " _You won't sing anymore._ Was that what he said?"

"Yes, but I don't know what that means. I assume he's talking about the song you sang yesterday. Is there any significance to the song? A secret code of some kind?"

"Outside of family tradition and sentiment, it doesn't have any meaning. It's not a cipher or a secret message. If that were the case, someone in the family would have deciphered it a long time ago." Draco's expression darkened in anger. "How did he know the song?"

"He heard it from you?" When Draco frowned at him in incredulity, Harry defended his claim. "I'm serious. It's the most logical explanation. Or maybe he used Legilimency on you."

Draco let out a weary sigh. "All right, let's sum it up. He's not after my life. He's not after something in the manor either, since he could've used the Imperius Curse to make me show him where something is. There's no mistake that he wants something from me. Perhaps he's trying to drive me mad."

While Harry agreed with Draco's speculation to a certain degree, the scene he had witnessed last night hinted at something else entirely. "I think what he made you do isn't the means to an end. It is both the means and the end."

A wry curve appeared on Draco's lips. "Something that might not be human wants me to play surrogate father? Why me? I just got back several days ago. There's a Muggle town on the other side of the forest. He could find plenty of candidates there."

"Maybe it has to be you." _Just like me_ , Harry added. Nevertheless, there was no meaning to the affection he had kept in a message bottle that could not be cast out to the sea. "He knows the song. It means something to him. It's not just a way of luring you—"

"The trunk in my grandfather's workshop," Draco interjected, breaking Harry's train of thought. "A child could fit into it."

When Harry realised the full extent of the implication, the notion made his stomach turn. "Are you saying the boy was inside that trunk the whole time? That someone locked him up in there for who knows how long, and he managed to escape in the end?"

"If he was already inside the manor while Astoria was pregnant, he might have heard me sing. That would also explain how those books were taken off shelves when no one was supposed to be in the manor. Maybe he was teaching himself magic or looking for something."

"I have two questions for you. One, how did he survive without food? Two, assuming he's inside the manor at the time you were still married to Astoria, why haven't you or Astoria noticed there was a third person in the house?"

"One, we don't know if he's human. He might not need food to survive. Two, if he's stuck inside the portal the whole time, Astoria and I wouldn't have noticed anything. After all, there's no reason for us to visit the workshop." With a distracted air about him, Draco wiped away the crumbs on the table. "But would he have heard the song while he was locked away in there?"

As Harry stared at the Malfoy signet ring on Draco's finger, the question he had kept to himself would stay docile no more. "Can I ask you something? What was in the urn?"

The facade of composure Draco had crafted with care began to crumble. Boring his eyes into Harry, he said in a flat voice that frightened Harry more than fury or crippling grief, "My son's body."

Harry shuddered. Why would someone steal Draco's child, much less a dead foetus? When his gaze fell upon Draco's white knuckles, he wished that Draco would lash out instead of keeping everything inside. "Are you all right?"

Draco took a deep breath, and the moment passed on. "I'll be fine." There was a pause. "Thanks for telling me everything. Now that I know I'm not imagining things, I can do something about it on my own. You should get going now. You wouldn't want to be late for work."

"Don't worry about it. I have an extra day off." Harry finished his tea. "There is something I want to check. As far as we can tell, he's not in the manor anymore. If he's very attached to you, he wouldn't go far. The forest outside the manor would be a good place to hide."

For several beats Draco contemplated Harry's face; in the end, he sighed and conjured a quill and a piece of parchment. "I have to go to London on business. Don't go into the forest alone. You'll be lost. There's a pub in the Muggle town on the other side of the forest. We can meet up there for lunch." He wrote down the address and handed it to Harry. "You'll like it there."

* * * * * * *

Given free rein to the manor, Harry returned to the secret workshop and examined the portal once more. The glass remained as impenetrable as before and the trunk as unreachable. However far-fetched Draco's speculation sounded, he could not dismiss the possibility either; and yet, it begged the question of who brought the boy here and why he was imprisoned.

Thinking back to how he retrieved the Philosopher's Stone from the Mirror of Erised, he repeated the same trick he did back then, but the trunk would not come to his side. Undeterred, he stared at the snakes at the top of the frame, imagined they were alive, and tried speaking to them. When the snakes did not move, he let out a bitter chuckle. It was to be expected, for he could no longer speak Parseltongue.

Since there was nothing more he could do in the manor, he ventured outside. At the gates, he tried every detection spell he could think of, but nothing happened. Some unknown force was preventing him from discovering the boy's trail. Frowning, he looked towards the forest, a study of innocence beneath an overcast sky. The search would have to wait for now, for there was something else he needed to do. Apparating back to his house, he changed his clothes, contacted a colleague at the Ministry, and set out once more.

The respite from the rain was short-lived. By the time Harry arrived at the town on the other side of the forest, a drizzle fell upon the sleepy town like a spell. The cobblestone street was slick with rain; autumn flowers nodded in their hanging basket outside one of the shops. Buildings, be they made of stone or bricks or timber, never quite lined up with their neighbours, which added to the quaint charm of this rural town.

Posing as a writer doing research on local folklores and legends, Harry asked around. The locals had a lot to say on the topic: the fairy that had been stealing food from houses and farms; the snake charmer who set venomous snakes upon evildoers; the robed figures who brought death in the old forest; and the lost boy of the Witching Woods who lured people into the forest with his song. Of the stories he had heard, the Witching Woods came up so often he could not help but become suspicious.

After asking for direction, he headed for the town's second-hand book shop, a cabin-size white house with large windows. Its openness lent a refreshing change to those stuffy antique book shops Harry had frequented lately. _I must've developed an affinity for book shops_ , he mused as he stepped through the door.

An eclectic collection filled the shelves. Books were tilted to one side as if no one bothered to stand them upright. There were no recent bestsellers in here, only books that might have been forgotten in the passage of time had they not been rescued from dusty attics and litter bins. Sitting at the birch counter was the shopkeeper, a slim, grey-haired gentleman with shrewd eyes and an aquiline nose. In the eyes of Muggle townsfolk, he was an expert in local folklores; in the eyes of the Ministry of Magic, he, Marcus Shelley, was the Ministry's Witch Watcher.

"You've heard quite a few stories before coming here," Shelley remarked after Harry told him what the locals had said. "There is no ancient evil in the old forest. The Witching Woods just tends to attract the wrong sort of attention. The inside is like a maze, you see, the perfect place to lie low in. It doesn't help that Malfoy Manor is on the other side."

Harry's heart skipped a beat. "You know the Malfoys?"

Shelley quirked a smile. "They don't know me, though I used to see young Mr Malfoy in town sometimes." He summoned two bundles of documents and handed them to Harry. "This is probably what you are looking for."

While Shelley manned the counter, Harry retreated to the backroom and read through the files, at times jolting down names and dates that might be relevant to what he was looking for. The more he read, the more sombre his mood became. When he was done, he returned the files to Shelley.

"Do you believe there is some truth to all those rumours in town?" Harry asked.

"I wonder." Shelley rubbed his chin. "Missing person cases might be genuine and not the doing of some supernatural being. Someone who claims to have seen a werewolf could be a liar. Bizarre deaths are in fact accidents or animal attacks. The truth can be quite mundane sometimes. The Witching Woods might give off the air of existing outside the rules of the world, but it's the people that drive the stories."

Once Harry had digested Shelley's words, he asked one last question. "Do you know anything about the lost boy of the Witching Woods?"

"There have always been stories about lost boys, though the latest incarnation is a little different. It started about a year ago, I believe? Right after a young boy went missing near the woods. Some people think he was caught by the lost boy; some people think he _is_ the lost boy. No one knows the truth, of course, since the boy hasn't been found yet."

After thanking Shelley for the information, Harry bought a book on folklores and legends in Wiltshire, compiled by the man himself. "It's a hobby of mine," Shelley remarked in a casual tone before handing the wrapped package to Harry.

With the door bell chiming its farewell behind him, Harry stepped out onto the misty street and checked his watch; it was almost time for him to meet Draco at the pub. When he remembered what happened last night, he quickened his pace as though pursued by vultures.

* * * * * * *

In the woods, the tiny figure seemed a little fuller and a little more substantial today. With a bag slung over his shoulder, he crooked his head and listened to the sound of trampling feet in the direction of the village. Were they hunters or woodsmen, robbers or Bluebeards? None of it mattered to him, for someone was trespassing in his playground. Slinking beneath the trees, he went back the way he came: through the veil that ordinary men could not pass.

Once the veil fell back into place with a shiver, the boy smiled in satisfaction; no one could enter the other side of the forest unless he led them in. Dancing to a tune only he could hear, he moved amongst the trees and made his way towards the hut that was his other home. His friend was waiting for him. Did his friend still refuse to eat, he wondered while he gave his bag a light pat. Stories and songs, games and toys, food and the little bird he caught the other day—if none could cheer up his friend, he would have to find something else.

A fluttering of wings from above disrupted the boy's musing. Looking up, he saw a shadow sail across the sky towards the direction of the manor, where his precious person lived by himself. However, his precious person was not alone last night. Who was that man? As he continued on his way, he thought he would bring the man to his friend; after all, his friend could always use a new friend.

* * * * * * *

The country pub where Harry and Draco were to meet up in had the ambience of time standing still since the first half of the last century. Cream-coloured panelled walls set off old timber, dark wood furniture and a bar of antique design. Paned windows looked out to the street; rain drops splattered against the glass and merged into veins. The lunch hour had started, and the pub was flooded with people. Sitting at a table by the window, Harry made a half-hearted attempt to finish the mushroom soup while waiting for Draco to arrive.

From what he had learnt so far, the boy had the ability to perform something akin to an Imperius Curse, in addition to mind manipulation similar to Legilimency. Harry could fight off an Imperius, but unlike Draco, he had never mastered Occlumency. If they were to confront the boy, he must be prepared for a possible mental assault—and for the boy to discover his secrets.

Feeling a lick of fire in his chest, he watched the rain pound on the window like the little fists of pixies. The chatter around him faded, and Astoria's low, gentle voice rose from the depth of his memory. "Draco isn't like me. He knows how to love, though he likes to pretend he's _above all that sappiness_ , as he would put it. You know how to love as well. That's why I envy you."

It was not until much later that Harry understood the meaning behind the strange speech: Astoria knew about his feelings towards her husband. Nevertheless, the chance to clarify his stance to her had slipped by him, for at the time, she was kidnapped by the dark wizard who had tortured and killed several people, and whom the Aurors had been trying to track down for some time.

When the demented wizard was later found dead, no one was surprised. Friends and families of the victims had claimed responsibility for the lynching, though the evidence was insufficient to indict them. One particular detail remained a mystery: how they knew the whereabouts of the wizard, which was classified information amongst the Aurors. During the hearing, they gave vague answers and contradicting information; Harry alone knew the truth.

In a moment of weakness, Harry had told one other person the general location where the serial killer was last seen. Whether the information was then leaked to the victims' families or the murder was committed by that person, the result was the same. Due to Harry's indiscretion, someone had stained his hands with the blood of the killer.

_"If I did kill him, are you going to arrest me?"_

"Sorry to keep you waiting." Draco's voice overlapped with the voice from the past, forming a dissonant chorus that jolted Harry out of his musing.

Harry looked up to see Draco sit down opposite him. Once he collected his thought, he shook his head and smiled. "I haven't been here for that long." When Draco eyed the half-empty bowl on the table, Harry changed the subject. "I haven't ordered the main course yet. What would you like?"

Once they had placed their order, Draco sat back and crossed his arms; weariness clung to him like a ghost clinging to an imitation of life. "How's the investigation coming along?"

After casting a Muffliato Charm at the tables closest to them, Harry told Draco about the lost boy of the Witching Woods. "And then we have this."

Harry pushed a piece of paper towards Draco. "In the past year, there are five reported missing persons that haven't been found. In the first, fourth and fifth cases, the individuals were last seen near the woods. The police searched the area several times, but they found nothing. Or rather, they couldn't get past certain parts of the forest."

"If you are thinking what I believe you are thinking about, then my answer to you is yes," Draco drawled.

Those words confirmed Harry's suspicion: the Malfoys had placed enchantments in the forest to prevent others from getting close to the manor. It was likely the reason Draco did not want him to venture into the forest alone. One mystery solved, Harry turned his thought to the next riddle and tapped on the circled name in his note.

"Between the first and the second missing cases, there was a strange incident in a shed near the woods. A man, eh—" Harry faltered, for the details were rather gruesome, yet when Draco gave him a look, he pressed on. "A man ate his own arms. More specifically, he tore out the flesh from his arms with his teeth, and then he ate it."

Draco's face contorted in distaste. "This isn't something we should be talking about at mealtime."

"Sorry." Harry drank some water and continued. "Anyway, by the time he was found, all that remained of his lower arms were bones. Also, his legs were bitten by several venomous snakes. The man survived somehow, but he's gone completely mad. It's impossible to communicate with him. There were no witnesses, and the authorities didn't know why the man was there, or what caused the snakes to bite him. They weren't even sure where the snakes came from."

"The question is: Did he eat his arm because he was mad, or did he go mad because he ate his own arms?" Draco cast Harry a glance. "You think it's the second case. That means it's most likely that someone cast the Imperius Curse on him."

"Yes, it looks that way. What I don't understand is why the snakes acted that way. They might've bitten the man out of defence, but they don't move in groups. The man couldn't have been smuggling snakes, could he? Or maybe—"

"If someone can talk to snakes, maybe he can order them around." Draco's deliberate display of nonchalance was enough to tell Harry what was on Draco's mind. The Dark Lord was dead, and the only other known Parselmouth was Harry, though very few people knew he had lost the ability to speak Parseltongue.

Swallowing his unease, Harry forced himself to smile. "Ever since the war ended, I couldn't talk to snakes anymore. Maybe there are other Parselmouths out there?"

Draco did not seem satisfied with the answer, but he said no more on the topic. "I assume this is the cut-off point of your investigation." He pointed at the date above the entry of the first missing person case. "Is there any reason you pick this date in particular?"

"That was the day I last saw you before you went on your trip. Several weeks later, a boy went missing. After that, the rumour about the lost boy began to spread around town. Then came the cannibal incident. Then four other people went missing.

"I'm not familiar with the statistics, but Wiltshire isn't like London. It's not normal for five people to disappear within the same year in one town, and none of them were found. Never mind the incident with that man..." Harry trailed off, for he saw the server coming over with the food they ordered.

For some time Harry and Draco ate in silence. While a dozen little mysteries occupied Harry's mind, he took a bite of his chicken sandwich and observed Draco. Slowly working his way through the seafood linguine, Draco seemed distracted, his eyes downcast and his lips glossy as though wearing lipstick. Harry could not help but stare. Stripped of his smirk and sneer and scowl, Draco looked unexpectedly beautiful.

Those grey eyes of Draco's met his gaze. Startled, Harry smiled at Draco and continued to eat; however, it seemed his companion had no wish to leave him alone. "Why are you helping me?" Draco asked.

The first instinct Harry had was to joke about something irrelevant. Nevertheless, as he faced the object of his affection, it occurred to him that Draco deserved more than his insincerity. 

"I don't want to see you looking like you are dying all over again."

Draco blinked, though he did not appear as shocked as Harry expected him to be. "I won't die from something like this." His voice was soft, his lips looking softer still. "My sense of self-preservation wouldn't allow it."

Feeling a pang inside him, Harry put on a cheerful front in an attempt to dissipate the gloom. "Eat up. Your food will turn cold." With that he gulped down the remaining sandwich and picked up the menu. "What kind of beers do they have here?"

"If you wanted a drink, you should've ordered it with your food," Draco remarked in a mild tone. The thread of the earlier conversation unravelled as though it never existed.

By the time Harry and Draco were ready to return to the manor, most of the customers had already left the pub. While passing through the entrance, Harry caught sight of something and stopped in front of the notice board. Pinned to the board was a missing person leaflet for someone whose name appeared at the very top of Harry's list: Damian Renfield, age eight. Beside him, Draco said nothing; he must have recognised the name as well.

The boy in the school photo was smiling a sheepish smile, as though unaccustomed to posing for a formal picture. His dark hair accented the paleness of his skin, though the dimple on his cheek brought out the mischievous air in him. Dark eyes looked straight into the camera and at the two spectators on the other side. At the time the picture was taken, Damian would not have known that one day his face would be plastered all over lampposts and notice boards.

An emotion, part anger and part sadness, rose to the surface of Harry's heart. The boy had gone missing for a whole year; it was probable that he was no longer alive. With some effort he tore his gaze away from the boy's face, exchanged a look with Draco, and headed for the door.

* * * * * * *

In the dimness of the entrance hall, a shadow swept its mighty wings in the air, disrupting the silence that had penetrated every stone and every piece of wood in the manor. As Draco approached the grand staircase, the shadow made an arc across the hall before landing on the ebony balustrade in a flurry of feathers. An eagle owl, bearing a letter for its master, folded its wings and became still as a statue.

After retrieving the letter from the owl's beak, Draco fed his pet an owl treat and caressed those quivering feathers. "Good work, Faustus. You may take a rest now." The owl hooted and flew away to its long-awaited nest.

"It's from my father." Draco showed Harry the letter, which bore the Malfoy family seal in blood red wax. "The lighting isn't good here. Let's go to the library instead."

The clutter in the library remained as it was. Surrounded by a barricade of books, Harry, feeling like an adult caught in a children's war game, sat on the black chesterfield sofa and watched Draco read the letter. Although there was no reaction from Draco, Harry sensed something was wrong. Without a word Draco gave the letter to him and leant back into the cushion.

Lucius Malfoy's handwriting flowed across the parchment in fluid curves. Dispensing with pleasantry and greeting altogether, the letter delved right into the heart of the matter.

"Draco," the letter began, "The news you have imparted in your letter is most troubling. Your mother and I have not returned to the Manor since your last visit, nor do we have the need to use the collection in our library. The defensive magic around the Manor is not perfect; however, I trust that you will be able to strengthen the spells that has protected our ancestral home for centuries.

"The artefact in question was entrusted to me. As you may recall, a certain guest once graced us with his presence in the manor for some time. During his stay, he frequented your grandfather's workshop and conducted certain experiments, the details of which escaped our attention.

"The trunk was kept sealed when I saw it last. In spite of thorough examination, I have not been able to unravel its secret or have it moved to another location. It is likely that the artefact serves as a prison to contain the fruit of the experiment, a hidden power or..."

Harry had read enough. Taking his time to digest the unexpected information, he folded the letter and put it back into the envelope. "The guest your father mentioned in the letter," he said as the nervous flutter in his stomach transformed into dread. "It was Voldemort, wasn't it?"

Crooking his head, Draco showed no emotion when he heard the name of the most feared dark wizard of the last century. "Yes. Perhaps what was in the trunk was a weapon of some sort, but he didn't have a chance to use it."

The calm in Draco's voice gave Harry an unsettling feeling, a premonition to some unknown calamity. While he did not know what Draco was planning, his intuition told him that he ought to act now lest history repeat itself. Those glassy eyes that were like dark voids staring out at him—he did not want to behold them ever again.

"He entrusted it to my father." Draco continued. "But Father couldn't unlock what was inside. After I left, that thing escaped from the trunk, turned the library upside down, left the manor and became a local legend amongst Muggles—"

"Draco, let the Ministry handle this," Harry interjected. Draco stopped talking and gave him a blank look. "People are missing, and a man might've been driven mad by him. What's more, he's after you." Harry fixed the blond a steady gaze and pleaded for him to understand. "If he's created by Voldemort, it's too dangerous for you to go looking for him."

A sardonic smile appeared on Draco's lips. "What are you saying? You, the one who defeated the Dark Lord, are scared of the thing he created? I might not be an Auror like you, but I'm not helpless either. Besides, there's something I want to ask him."

Like a music box being wound, the scene in the antique book shop played out in Harry's mind: the dust beneath the golden lamplight, those books that Draco had looked through, and the declaration that a dead son was haunting the manor.

Every fibre in Harry's body told him not to get carried away, yet words escaped his mouth before he could take them back. "Would you be happier if that boy was your son?"

In a flash Draco whipped out his wand and trained it at Harry's throat, his eyes gleaming like the tip of a blade. "You don't understand, do you? That thing stole my son's body. I'm grateful to you for what you did, but it stops here. Don't get in my way."

Stunned, Harry stared into those frozen eyes of Draco's, unable to move or speak. In that instant, he was disgusted with himself, for he had stabbed into the tender flesh of Draco's heart with his words, and torn apart the wound that had barely healed.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have said that," Harry mumbled, but the damage was done. Unable to look Draco in the eye, he stared at the books on the table, a treasure trove of knowledge that would get him nowhere. "If you are going after him, let me help."

Silence stretched. At length, Draco put away his wand, stood up, and to Harry's surprise, held out a hand. A multitude of emotions swirled inside Harry like a maelstrom: shame, self-loathing, fear, longing, empathy, pain. He and Draco were partners in crime; that would never change. After taking a deep breath, he met Draco's storm grey eyes and took his hand.

* * * * * * *

The rain had stopped by nightfall, and clouds parted to unveil the indigo sky. Like ink the night drenched every inch of the forest in darkness, transforming the woods into a botanical womb in a primordial nightmare. In the stillness, someone was singing a song. A little figure was moving amongst the trees towards the direction of the manor.

The figure emerged onto the open field, where hedges led to the manor at the end of the path. Stopping in front of the wrought-iron gates, he looked up at the magnificent mansion; no light shone out from paned windows. Tilting his head, he took out a paper crane from his pocket, held it in his palms and blew. A small white bird with real feathers flew out of his hands and towards the window where the master bedroom was located.

When he took a step back, the landscape changed. In a land flooded by the ocean, the gigantic moon, half-sunk below the horizon, was on the verge of swallowing the earth whole. Across the surface of the water floated countless corpses and the reflection of the looming half-moon. A single stone ruins remained standing in a distance, the last survivor in this aquatic world. In reality, no such world existed; this was the mental landscape conjured by a wizard.

Paying no heed to the dead bodies around him, the boy floated in the air towards the figure sitting in the ruins. Without a sound he landed in front of the man, but the wizard did not look at him. Undeterred, he hugged the stoic figure and called the man's name. "I'm here with you. You don't have to cry anymore." When the wizard returned the hug, the boy buried his face in the man's shoulder, a smile of contentment playing across his lips.

A shrill cry pierced through the silence, stirring ripples across the water. The boy raised his head and searched for the source of the disruption. The moon, the sea, the corpses, the stone ruins, the infinite night—he saw nothing out of the ordinary in this extraordinary world. Several beats later, he felt it: the wizard's arms tightened around him like vice and held him in place. In puzzlement he looked at the man, whose face had transformed into the white mask of pierrot.

The stone ruins disintegrated beneath their feet like a sand castle, and the man and the child fell into the sea. Clinging to the man the boy screwed his eyes shut, and in the next moment they landed on wooden floor. The sky became a kaleidoscopic dome of stained glass; walls of mirrors reflected the boy and his companion. When the boy let go of his companion, the man dissolved into a shower of ashes and dust. Stepping over the pile of ashes, the boy set off on a run in this labyrinth of mirrors, his mirthful laughter chasing after the invisible ghost. His waif-like figure dashed from mirror to mirror in this twisted wonderland.

The boy reached a dead end. His glittering eyes squinted at the pair of snakes coiling atop one of the mirrors. Wriggling against each other in a display of unwholesome affection, the snakes bared their fangs. When the boy hissed at them in a domineering tone, the twins shut their jaws and became as docile as harmless pets. Satisfied, the boy stepped through the mirror and into a windowless chamber.

In the middle of the room lay a trunk large enough to hold a human adult. As he padded closer to the trunk, the locks slid out of their sockets with a sharp clank. The lid swung open of its own accord and revealed the secret hidden within. A man, blindfolded, gagged and bound at the wrist, was sitting inside the trunk with his knees drawn up: his blond head drooped as though asleep. Tilting his head to one side, the boy untied the man in the trunk. Nevertheless, the man remained asleep, his chest rising and falling in slow, steady motions.

Out of nowhere jets of red light shot towards the boy in quick succession. With the agility of a cat the boy jumped out of the way, wheeled around and glared at a particular spot on the wall. Although he could not see his attacker, he slipped through the feeble mental barrier and forced his will upon the wizard.

 _Throw away the wand,_ he imitated the low, mellow voice of a certain someone, seducing his attacker with sweet promises that were poison in disguise. _You don't need it anymore. I'll take care of everything for you._

A hand grabbed the boy by the arm and twisted him around. His eyes widened, the boy found himself staring into a pair of grey eyes. For a tantalising moment, the child and the man faced each other, their visages the same deathlike pallor, their hair the same shade of blond. When a flash of crimson light struck the boy's back, the boy seemed a little surprised. The light went out of his eyes, and like a broken doll he collapsed at the man's feet and moved no more.

* * * * * * *

Lying on the carpet in the entrance hall was the body of a boy. Clad in a large, dirty shirt that might have belonged to Draco, the dark-haired child could not be more than six or seven years old. Beneath the pale blue light, his skin took on a ghostly pallor. In spite of the shabby clothes and the smudges on his face, he was hauntingly good looking.

Once upon a time, Harry had seen a similar face in Dumbledore's pensieve: the dreary Muggle orphanage, the quivering box of stolen tokens, and the handsome boy who would become the most notorious dark wizard in history. The resemblance was so striking that he had no reason to doubt anymore.

Details that had seemed unrelated at first fell into place: the snakes carved to the gate of the portal, the boy's innate talent in mind manipulation, the disappearances, the snakes that had bitten the man who ate his own arms, Voldemort's experiment, and the ghost of Draco's son.

Steeling his mind, Harry crouched down and faced the remnant of a long-forgotten nightmare. "He's like a miniature Voldemort. Could he be Voldemort's son?"

Wand in hand, Draco stood over the dishevelled figure with an unreadable look on his face. "The age isn't right. If he were the Dark Lord's son, he should be at least nine or ten by now." There was a pause. "He's probably a homunculus created by the Dark Lord."

A chill ran down Harry's back. The night of Voldemort's resurrection returned in all its vividness inside his mind: bones of the dead, flesh of the servant, blood of the enemy, and the deformed creature that was the Dark Lord's temporary guise. "Is he like a clone? A copy of Voldemort?"

"Not quite. A homunculus doesn't need food or water to survive, and it doesn't age naturally. He probably looks like a six-year-old for a long time. A homunculus is loyal to its master, and it'll follow its master's command to the end. Since his real master is dead, no one knows what will happen now. Maybe he won't last long. Maybe he'll just live on until he rots."

Harry touched the boy's cheek with a mixture of pity and morbid curiosity. The texture of the boy's skin was no different from that of human, albeit cold as the dead. "He must've been locked up for at least eight years," he heard himself say. "Was he conscious the whole time?"

"You are too soft-hearted for your own good." There was a hint of wryness in Draco's voice. "He's out of the trunk now, so it doesn't matter whether or not he knows how long he's been in there."

"Yeah." Harry straightened up and observed Draco, who seemed intent on boring his eyes into the sleeping boy's face. However callous it might appear, there was one thing he wanted to ask. "When you saw him, did he look like what you imagined your son would look like? Was that the reason you thought your son's haunting the manor?"

Draco's mouth curved into a distorted smile. "He looked like the child I used to be. He must've seen the family portrait and used that image to fool me. How silly of me to believe in such an obvious lie. Don't you think so?"

A hazy vision of Draco sitting beside Astoria and singing to their unborn child flitted before Harry's eyes. "No, I don't think it's silly at all," Harry said quietly. "Do you miss him?"

"Who knows. In truth, I never knew him," Draco whispered as he contemplated the dozen details that marked the boy as someone not of the Malfoy bloodline. At length, the stoic mask fell into place over Draco's face. "Let's take him to the cellar before he wakes up."

Draco raised his wand and cast a Levitation Charm on the boy. Floating in the air like a ragged doll, the boy seemed all the more pitiable; nonetheless, beneath the visage of innocence was a child who would not hesitate to manipulate others in order to get his way.

Torn between pity for the boy and ache for Draco, Harry pressed his lips together and followed Draco into the shadowy hall. Within the confines of their gilded frames, portraits of the past haunted the footsteps of the living with their grey gazes and their unspoken words.

Behind the heavy door of the cellar, a rush of mustiness assaulted Harry, reminding him of certain unpleasant memories he had no wish to dwell on. Darkness extended deep into the chamber, the depth of which he could not measure by sight alone.

Undisturbed by the domain of the night, Draco moved the boy into the cellar and went inside after him. Once he had lowered the boy onto the floor, he conjured a lantern and turned around to face Harry, solemn and determined. "Give me half an hour to talk to him alone. After that, you can take him away."

His heart threatening to leap out of his chest, Harry took a step forward and grasped the wooden door, hoping beyond hope that he could dissuade the man. "No, Draco. I'm not leaving you alone with him. Who knows what he might do—"

"The worst he can do is turn me into his puppet." In spite of the gravity of the situation, Draco's voice was peppered with amusement. "If anything happened to me, you can do whatever you want." Those ashen eyes of his pleaded for Harry's understanding. "Please, Harry."

Succumbing to those eyes and to his own folly, Harry made a compromise. "I'll agree to it if you keep the door open. If he makes one suspicious move, I'll drag him out of the manor, whether you've finished talking to him or not."

Draco relaxed his shoulders and nodded. With some reluctance Harry stepped away from the door and watched the object of his affection approach the homunculus modelled after the Dark Lord himself. Swallowing down his trepidation, he let out a sigh, sat down on the cold stone step and waited.

* * * * * * *

The cellar, with its low, vaulted ceiling, was imposing in its vastness and its solitude. A single lantern was too feeble to penetrate the darkness, but it provided enough light for what Draco was about to do. After charming the lamp to hover in the air, Draco pointed his wand at the boy and revived him.

Dark eyes snapped open, blinked for several beats, and darted from left to right. Woken from his induced sleep, the boy sat up and looked around him in confusion; yet as soon as he caught sight of the tall figure standing several paces away from him, he smiled a brilliant smile that clashed with the sombre air in the cellar.

"I lost. You caught me, Draco," the boy said in delight while gazing at Draco with those hungry eyes of his. "I wanted to meet you for a long time, but you wouldn't stop thinking about him. It's only when you are dreaming that you would let me in."

Keeping his temper in check, Draco observed the boy, whose childlike candidness puzzled him. It was as though the boy felt no need to hide anything from him. "Why would you want to meet me? We don't even know each other."

"I know you." The boy stood up, wobbled a little and found his footing. "When I was inside the box, I heard you sing. Your voice was so soothing and gentle. When I listened to your voice, I didn't feel so terrible anymore. But one day, you stopped singing. Why wouldn't you sing anymore?"

Although Draco did not want to reply, the boy was peering at him in the same blunt way that a child would stare straight into an adult's eye. "You were inside my head. You know why."

"Because your son was buried and didn't come back to life?" The boy tilted his head to one side and beamed. "Don't be sad. He's here with me right now. He's alive."

The voice sounded muffled as though the cellar was submerged. His mouth gone dry, Draco stared at the boy, a terrible premonition rising from the depth of his mind. "What are you talking about?"

With a satisfied gleam in his eye, the boy pressed a hand to his abdomen. "He's right here. Babies live inside their mothers, right? He's inside me, so he's all right now. He's listening. He's looking at you through me. You see?" A smile of pure happiness flitted onto his face. "From now on, we'll always be with you."

When comprehension struck Draco, he thought someone had hollowed out his body and turned him into an empty shell devoid of internal organs or memories. The world had gone silent; he could hear nothing but the rushing of blood in his head. There was no air for him to breathe in, no water for him to drown in. The cellar was shaking, but a moment later he realised it was him that was shaking. His legs gave out beneath him, and he sank to the floor.

As soon as Harry saw Draco collapse, he leapt off the stairs and rushed to Draco's side. Beneath the golden lamplight, the blond was as white as a ghost, his eyes reflecting nothing in their depths. "Draco?"

At the cue, Draco snapped out of his daze and retched all over the floor. Startled out of his wits, Harry rubbed Draco's back and trained the holly wand at the boy, who stood stunned in the distance. "What did you do?" Harry gritted through his teeth.

"I just said his son is inside me and everything will be all right." The boy, unable to understand what was happening, blinked, his gaze gliding from Harry's wand to Draco, then to the pungent filth on the floor. "What's wrong, Draco? You aren't happy? Why are you crying? Are you hurt? You aren't feeling well?"

"Stay back! Don't move!" Harry barked, but the boy did not appear to hear him.

"Draco?"

"Stop calling my name!" Draco's hoarse voice made the boy stop dead. Breathing hard, Draco wiped his mouth with his sleeve and glared at the pitiful creature in the oversized shirt. "I don't know you."

The boy's face crumpled as though he was about to cry. In the next beat, Harry's wand flew out of his grasp, sailed across the room, and landed on the boy's outstretched hand. Cursing himself for the lapse, Harry grabbed Draco's wand and threw a hex at the boy, who waved aside the spell in a stance not unlike that of his creator. The air crackled with magic, flashes of white light splitting and merging in the space between Harry and the boy.

" _I'll show you everything_ ," a voice whispered in Draco's head, the same childish voice he had been hearing for the past few days—the voice he had mistaken for his son's. " _I'll tell you my story_."

His heart and his mind in tatters, Draco was too exhausted to block out the boy. In the end, he yielded to a will that was not his own, closed his eyes and plunged headlong into the dark.

* * * * * * *

In the beginning, there was darkness. Soon after, voices of individuals he had never met pierced through the indolent darkness of the womb, filling his dreams with sound he had not dreamt of before. For the first time, he was aware of the _self_ and the _other_ , of his own existence and of the existence of a world beyond the dark. Hoping for someone to notice him, he cried out, but his prayer went unanswered. For the first time, he tasted despair.

Voices came and went like dreams, and he, curled up inside his prison, paid no more heed to the sirens that were false hope in disguise. He slept, for how long he did not know, until one day along came a miracle. Outside his cage, the young lord and lady of the manor were expecting a child. The man sang often to his unborn child, and his voice, soft and gentle, trickled into another child's ear.

Although the child remained inside his prison, his dreams became less troubled, his melancholy less crippling. The man's voice was like a beacon in the all-encompassing darkness, a balm that soothed his restless mind. But one day, the lady of the manor lost her baby, and the man sang no more.

As the child in the box wondered why he could not hear the man sing anymore, he felt a throbbing pain inside him—a sensation he had never experienced before. Without a voice that could reach the man, he would never find out the reason. Realization came to him like a prick from a needle: as long as he stayed inside the box, he would not be able to see the man. He wanted to see the person who sang in such a tender voice.

This time, he did not cry out for the man to come find him; instead, he forced his way out of the womb and became born into the world of light.

The stone chamber, bare and dimly lit, could have been the prison tower that held Rapunzel captive; but at the time, he knew of no fairy tales, no stories, nothing other than the song in his head. In the middle of the room was a door with a tarnished frame, and some distance away was the box the child had escaped from. Two brass snakes, locked forever in an embrace, guarded over the door. When the child expressed his wish to the snakes, the twins moved apart and opened the door for him.

The door did not lead to mad Wonderland, but to another bare room inside a large, magnificent manor-house. The interior of the manor was lavish, albeit coated in dust and cobwebs. It made no difference to the boy if the house was extravagant or in ruins, for it was the first time he had seen anything aside from darkness.

He searched everywhere, but there was no sign of the man who sang to him. He looked for clues of the man's whereabouts, flipping through books he could not read, trying to communicate with talking paintings even though he did not know any human language. When he had exhausted every possible clue, he came to the sad conclusion that the man had gone away. He couldn't find him...

* * * * * * *

In the library that represented the boy's mind, all was silent. Golden flame flickered in the fireplace, throwing shadows across book stacks and the tiny figure kneeling beside the chesterfield sofa. Endless night waited outside the window, but the boy paid no attention to it; instead, he kept his eyes on Draco, who was lying on the sofa, seeing dreams that were not his. After smoothing out the frown between Draco's brows, the boy pressed his ear against Draco's chest and listened to the steady heartbeat.

* * * * * * *

The expanse behind the manor was where the boy searched first. He did not know how long he had walked. One night, he came upon several houses scattered across the land. He roamed from household to household, barn to barn, looking for a man with blond hair, pale skin and grey eyes. Those few people who saw him screamed and threw things at him, but all the animals in the area, being more perceptive than humans, dared not breathe a sound.

Someone sounded the alarm. With glaring torches the villagers scoured the area, but they could not find the ghostly child, for the boy ran back the way he came, back to the manor that was his home. Nevertheless, the gates refused to open for him. He shook the gates and tried to get them open, but the gates were as sturdy as a wall. The door was closed; he could not go home anymore. There was no other way for him but to continue looking for the blond man.

The forest outside the manor was where the boy searched next, where things were lost and other things were found. He did not find the blond man. One rainy afternoon he found a human boy, who had stumbled into the forest to get away from his parents. His inside filled with nothing but sadness and a gnawing pain called loneliness, the boy made the human child his companion.

His friend taught him many things: stories, songs, games, the English language, the way of the world. Hungry for what he did not have, he devoured everything his friend possessed: thoughts, feelings, memories, knowledge, experience, dreams, secrets. One day, his friend collapsed and would not wake up; the boy realised his human friend needed food, water and shelter.

There was a village on the other side of the forest. After his previous experience with human villages, he was more cautious this time. When the sky darkened, he slunk into the village, taking only a few things from each house before slipping away into the forest. His desire to go unnoticed was overpowering. As though someone had heard his prayer, no one noticed his presence. No one sent out bloodhounds to chase him. He was safe.

Using branches, leaves and tablecloths, the boy built a hut between two trees and moved his friend inside. Food and water sustained his friend; the extra clothes kept his friend warm at night; and a house sheltered his friend from the never-ending rain. Some time later, his friend got better, though he could not go far without the boy's assistance.

The boy wanted to find the blond man soon, but he could not abandon his friend. Even if he were to carry his friend, they would not get far. Gambling on the chance that the man might come back to the manor someday, the boy decided to remain in the forest and wait for the man to return.

Weeks passed by in relative peace. One day, the boy came across a huntsman, who, unlike other villagers, showed no fear towards him. Taking the opportunity, the boy asked the huntsman if he had seen a blond man. Confident of his own status at the top of the food chain, the huntsman lied and led the boy to a shed near the woods, with the promise that he would take the boy to the blond man.

When the boy peeked into the huntsman's mind, a single image persisted. In a Great Hall composed of black granite and white marble, men in tuxedo were sitting at the long banquet table. Two servants carried a large dish into the room, set it on the table and removed the silver lid. There was a collective murmur of approval. Curled up like a foetus upon the silver platter was the boy himself, who was dressed in elaborate clothes and fast asleep. One of the men, a silver-haired gentleman, picked up a carving knife and a carving fork in glee...

His friend was wrong about one thing: the wolf did not eat Little Red Riding Hood, but the Woodsman did. This huntsman did not hunt the traditional meaning of game. If the boy did not want to be eaten, he would have to do something. _The door is closing..._ Something... _The man is coming towards me..._ Something...

* * * * * * *

"That's enough. You don't have to show me any more." Draco's voice rang out beneath the lofty ceiling.

The boy lifted his head and gazed at Draco with a vacuous look on his face, his eyes as soulless as black pearls. "I want you to know everything about me, since I know everything about you." The non-expression fell away like a veil, and the boy's face became animated. "Are you angry that I made the man eat himself?"

"No." Draco sat up on the sofa, still trying to digest what he had seen. When the boy flopped down beside him, he cast the boy a glance. "Have you done the same thing to other people?"

"No. It wasn't much fun." The boy swung his legs. "I ate them instead. What they know, what they did, what they saw, what they heard, what they think, what they remember. Everything. Dreams and secrets always taste the best." The boy tilted his head as though he could hear a voice in the midst of silence. "But that's not what you want to know."

Unable to shut the boy out of his mind, Draco clung onto the only lifeline he had. "You fooled me into thinking you were my son. You ate my son's body. I want to know why."

The boy looked crestfallen. "I want to be with you. I want to make you happy, but you aren't happy. Didn't you want your son come back to life?"

His eyes flashing in anger, Draco raised his hand as though about to strike this devil of a child, yet in the end, he gritted his teeth and lowered his hand. "That's not what I want. Not like this."

"What do you want then? The world? I'll tie a ribbon around it and give it to you. Love? I'll make everyone love you so much they'll die for you. Revenge? I'll kill all your enemies." The boy looked into Draco's eyes. "I love you, Draco. I'll do anything for you. All you have to do is tell me what you want."

Squinting at the boy, Draco came to a certain realisation; he had discovered the answer to a riddle that had been bothering him ever since he came back to England. _The world has gone mad; we are all mad_ , he thought. "There's one thing I want you to do."

His face breaking into a brilliant smile, the boy leant on Draco and hummed the tune they both knew by heart. However skinny the child appeared to be, the weight pressing against Draco was too light to be that of a normal six-year-old. After gazing at the boy's raven hair for a moment, Draco began to sing. For the first time, the song did not remind him of the Malfoy bloodline or Astoria or the child whose name he did not wish to recall.

As the fire grew dim, the boy became silent and his head drooped against Draco's arm. Finding no reason to continue anymore, Draco stopped singing, though he stayed where he was, neither pushing the boy away nor holding him close. When he took a deep breath, the flame flickered for some seconds and died.

Like clouds parting to reveal the moon, darkness parted to reveal the crystal chandelier hanging from the coffered ceiling. Feeling soft surface on his back, Draco was dimly aware that he was lying on a sofa in the drawing room. Looking to the side, he saw Harry kneeling beside the sofa, his visage dominated by an emotion akin to fear. The expression stirred something in Draco's memory: water and blood and pain and his disastrous sixth year at Hogwarts.

Those green eyes of Harry's lit up as soon as they met Draco's gaze. The fear on Harry's face was replaced by a mixture of relief and anxiety, his lips curling into an unconvincing smile. "Are you all right? Did he do anything to you?"

An inexplicable sensation swelled up inside Draco, but he was too tired to dwell on its meaning. "He showed me, no, _made_ me look into his mind." Weariness ate into his bones and forced his eyelids shut. "What happened to him?"

"He fell asleep for some reason. I carried you out and left him in the cellar." Harry's voice drifted into Draco's consciousness through a haze. "Draco? Are you sure you are all right?"

"Sorry," Draco mumbled, though he was not sure if that was what he said. "I just need to sleep for a while. Wake me up in an hour." The only reply he received was a gentle hand touching his brow before darkness claimed him once more.

* * * * * * *

After lowering Draco onto the bed, Harry tucked him in and sat down beside him. His hand reached out of its own accord and brushed a blond strand away from Draco's face. Once upon a time, he had watched over this former rival of his by the bedside, though Draco knew nothing about it. How long had it been since the day he realised his animosity towards the Slytherin had evolved into another beast altogether?

Harry reached into his pocket and pulled out two wands: a holly wand and a hawthorn wand. The familiar texture of the hawthorn wand in his hand lured him into the mood for reminiscence; however, there was something he must do right now. Leaving Draco's wand on the nightstand, he ran his thumb over Draco's lips and hardened his resolve.

Quiet as a cat, Harry slipped out of Draco's room, jogged down the ebony staircase, and entered the cheerless drawing room. When he tapped on the door to the cellar, the door gave way to him without resistance. Swallowing his trepidation, he conjured a ball of orange light and squinted at the creature curled up on the floor. There was neither sound nor movement in the cellar; the boy was as still as the dead.

With his wand trained at the boy, Harry stepped into the room; his eyes never once left the thing that took on the deceptive form of an innocent child. Incantations for various curses flitted across his mind until he settled on the very curse that the boy's master favoured. When he was three steps away from the boy, he stopped. Fixing a hard gaze upon the pathetic figure, he took a deep breath, forced his will upon his wand and muttered, _"Avada Kedavra!"_

Nothing happened. As conflicting emotions surged inside him, Harry heaved a sigh and lowered his wand. The attempted murder and the intent to kill had left him chilled to the core; he could not stop the tremor in his hands. Even though the boy was created by Voldemort, Harry did not possess the will to kill something that resembled a human child.

Tightening his grip on his wand, Harry aimed for the boy once more. _"Obliviate!"_ Instead of blotting out the boy's memory like spilled ink, the spell fell into the void as though the boy had no memory to begin with.

Unsettled by the discovery, Harry clenched his teeth, wove together a plausible life story, and introduced the elements little by little into the boy's mind. The spell smashed against a mental wall and disintegrated. Unwilling to concede defeat, he cast a succession of mental spells on the boy, but his spells either hit the mental wall or fell into the vacuum. His arsenal of spells had been exhausted; there was only one more spell he could use to sever the boy's hold on Draco.

_"Imperio!"_

A tingling sensation travelled from Harry's mind down to his arm; the invisible thread linking him to the boy held fast for several seconds and snapped.

"Mr Wizard is terrible," the boy murmured in his sleep, startling Harry out of his wits. "I don't want to forget... I am me... I'm here... I'm alive... And I've finally met Draco... I want to hear him sing again... I want to be with him... I want to see him smile..." His voice faded into a mumble before he became silent once more.

As Harry stared at the boy whose wishes could not be simpler, he lost his resolve. However alike in appearance and in magical talent they were, the boy was not Tom Riddle. Biting his lower lip, Harry was poised to cast the Stunning Spell on the boy and lock him in a trunk for transport. Nevertheless, he did not will his magic into action. Before he took the boy away, he wanted to talk to Draco.

His heart heavy with resentment towards himself and pity towards the boy, Harry shuffled out of the room and shut the door behind him.

* * * * * * *

The rain returned with the breaking of day, its murmur creeping through the window and into the guestroom. Sitting on the bed, Harry lifted his eyes from the book he was reading and looked out the window. Leaden clouds hovered low over the Witching Woods, signalling the approach of a storm. However early the hour was, he could not sit still anymore. After putting the book aside, he went to the bathroom to freshen up.

Several minutes later, Harry stood in front of Draco's room and knocked on the door. When he heard an answer, he went inside, yet as soon as he saw the figure standing beside the cupboard, he stopped dead in his tracks. With his back to the door, Draco was wearing a pair of black trousers and nothing else. Harry could not look away from the curves that were shaped like a pair of folded wings on Draco's back.

"Good morning." Draco took a shirt from the cupboard and put it on. "I've slept too much."

The moment was lost, and Harry, woken from his reverie, recovered his voice and fragments of his composure. "You should've slept longer. How are you feeling?"

Draco turned around to look at Harry, his lips twisting into a crooked smile. "You've been asking that a lot for the past two days. Do I look so frail to you?" His expression grew serious. "There are several things I have to tell you about the boy."

Forcing himself to focus on the matter at hand, Harry sat at the edge of the table. "All right. You said last night that he made you look into his mind. Did he make you use Legilimency on him?"

"I don't know how to describe it in detail, but that's the basic idea." After buttoning up his shirt, Draco sat down on the bed and crossed his legs. "To him, it's like praying very hard for his wish to come true. In most cases, he got his wish. He wanted me to hear his voice, so I heard him. He wanted Damian Renfield to be his friend, so Damian became his friend."

The name pricked Harry's conscience; he had been too focused on Draco's plight that he had forgotten about the Muggle boy who was lost in the woods. "What happened to him? Is he still alive?"

There was a moment of hesitation before Draco shook his head. "The boy broke Damian's mind, though not intentionally. He was so eager to learn everything that he charged into Damian's mind like a wild bull. He learnt to be more subtle later on, but the damage was done. The shock of having his mind invaded, the Imperius Curse that was placed on him, the physical toll of living outdoors for months—a Muggle child like Damian couldn't survive for long."

Distressed over the news, Harry bit the inside of his cheek. In spite of the atrocity he had seen during the war and in his line of work, he could never get used to the notion of a child becoming a victim. "Is there anything else?"

"Remember the man who ate his own arms? When the boy looked into that man's mind, he saw something. Since everything he knew about the world came from a Muggle child, he interpreted what he saw literally: the man was going to eat him. In a way, he was right. My guess is that the man was going to molest him or sell him to a child prostitution ring."

Harry could not conceal his disgust, yet Draco continued in the dispassionate voice of a narrator telling someone else's story.

"Rather than being eaten, he made the man eat himself. After that point, he believes most humans are enemies who want to eat him. At the same time, they have something he wants: memories, experience, knowledge. He craves for those things he doesn't have, and in the boy's own word, he eats them."

"I didn't know a wizard could do that using Legilimency. Voldemort made me see visions that weren't real, but that's all he did."

Draco leant back on his hands and gazed at Harry. "I have a theory. Have you seen a wizard extract a copy of a memory from his own mind and pour it into the pensieve? The boy probably operates under a similar principle. He can take other people's thoughts and memories and keep them within himself. Unlike a trained witch or wizard, however, he doesn't just make a copy. He pulls out everything from the root.

"Our memory doesn't just contain episodes in our lives. Our knowledge, the dreams we had, the skills we've acquired, our likes and dislikes, the thought that occurred to us a second ago—these are also stored in our memory. If we were to take away every single memory a person possesses, it's the same as turning his mind into a blank slate—the mind of a newborn child. That's what the boy did.

"He's like a vampire, but he doesn't drink blood; he feeds on people's thoughts and memories instead. Perhaps he's lonely and wants to fill himself with things. Perhaps he's like a child who tastes sweets for the first time and wants more.

"Anyway, those other missing persons you mentioned were probably his victims. He lured them into the forest and ate their minds, so to speak. Mind you, this is just my interpretation, so I could be wrong. Legilimency can get you inside someone's head, but you can never fully understand a person's mind."

Crossing his arms, Harry digested everything he had heard so far. "I have two questions. One, what happened to his victims after he was through with them? Two, if the boy was so good with magic, why didn't Voldemort use him during the war?"

Heaving a sigh, Draco conjured a glass of water and gulped down half of it. "I didn't look that far into his mind, but he probably left them in the forest. They are most likely dead by now.

"As for your second question, I can't answer that. The boy doesn't seem to have any memory of his creator. Since the Dark Lord didn't leave any records that we know of, we'll never know why the boy was created. Humans are like that too, aren't they? They don't know why they were born, so they keep searching for a purpose in their lives."

As Harry contemplated the pensive look on Draco's face, various scenes from last night played out once more in his head: words, actions, expressions. Everything he had observed of the boy led to a singular and most unsettling conclusion.

"The boy has found a purpose in life, hasn't he? To make you happy. He said your son is inside him." Harry paused, unable to rid his mind of the gruesome image. "Was that his way of trying to make you happy?"

Draco's lips curled into a rueful smile, his composure crumbling as though washed away by the rain. "He thought doing that would bring my son back to life. He really thinks like a child." There was a pause as he stared into the glass of water. "He never met his real master. When he heard me sing, he assumed I'm his master. When I left the manor a year ago, he got out of the trunk to find me. Well, you know the rest of the story."

The implication of those words was not lost on Harry, who sucked in a deep breath. Draco could not have known about the boy; what happened were merely countless coincidences piling on top of one another. "It's not your fault, Draco."

"I know. I'm not so conceited as to blame myself for everything," Draco murmured as though talking to himself, and his gaze fell on a spot beyond Harry's shoulder. "Since a homunculus is supposed to be loyal to his master, I did a little experiment. I told him to go to sleep, and he fell asleep. If I don't tell him to wake up, will he sleep on forever?"

"If your theory turns out to be correct, then what? Are you going to let him sleep on like this for the rest of his life?" Silence. "Are you going to keep him here by your side?" Silence. "Are you under the Imperius Curse?" More silence. "Are you mad?"

"Perhaps." Draco got up and went to the door. "Come on. Let's go see the little Sleeping Prince."

The boy remained where Harry left him last night: a huddling, motionless figure on the floor. To Harry's alarm, Draco picked up the child and carried him to the stairs. "There's no need to keep him in here anymore. He won't run away." Draco explained.

"That's not the only thing I'm worried about. He's dangerous, and he has no scruples about using the Imperius Curse on you or on anyone else. You'll only get hurt if you get too close to him."

After shifting the child in his arms to a more secure position, Draco climbed the narrow flight of stairs. "Don't worry. Even though I can't shake off the Imperius Curse while I'm sleeping, I can do that when I'm awake. Besides, there's no need for him to use the curse on me anymore."

"Because he has no reason to deceive you anymore." Harry finished the sentence for Draco and followed him upstairs to the drawing room. "Even so, I can't let you keep him here. We agreed that once you're done talking to him, I'll take him away."

Leaving the drawing room behind him, Draco strolled down the dreary hallway; the boy barely stirred in his arms. "Yes, I remember. Are you going to take him to the Ministry? You do know what they'll do once they know about the boy, don't you?"

The scene in the cellar played out once more in Harry's mind. Feeling a pressure in his chest, he caught up with Draco and looked at the boy, who slept on with a smile on his face, oblivious to the predetermined fate that was thrust upon him by his creator. Was the boy a hapless victim or an irredeemable monster? Harry could not tell anymore.

"Is that what your experiment is about? To give him another kind of ending?"

"No," came the quiet reply. "Making him sleep till the end of his life is the same as keeping him in a prison. The same goes for confining him in the manor. From the moment he was born, he's not allowed to have a happy ending." Draco contemplated the boy as though gazing upon a relic from another lifetime. "Still, if he likes it here, why not grant him his wish before the end?"

In spite of his growing agitation, Harry could not bring himself to counter Draco's words, for he knew what the boy's wishes were: wishes so heartbreakingly pure that the boy could not be anything but human. "He's not your son, Draco."

Draco halted in front of the grand staircase and looked up at his ancestor's portrait. "I know," he whispered. "I don't pity him, and I don't think of him as a substitute for my son. It's just that my son is in his stomach, that's all."

Harry winced; a mixture of resignation and apprehension crept into his heart like poison. "Let me talk to Kingsley first. He's not someone who would make rash decisions, so I'm sure we can come up with some kind of an arrangement. Besides, we need to find those missing people and return them to their families, and to do that we need the Ministry's help."

A shadow passed across Draco's face. "Yes, that's good enough. Thank you." There was a pause. "Sorry for dragging you into this mess. I've been asking too much from you. When this is over, let me give you something in return. What would you like?"

"You don't have to do that. I wasn't looking for something in return when I decided to help you." Words left Harry's mouth before it occurred to him that he had lied. Smothering the voice in his head, he put on a smile. "I volunteered, remember?"

Draco shot Harry a glance. "It'll make me feel better. Think about it anyway, all right?" In the face of Draco's obstinacy, there was very little Harry could do but nod.

After taking another look at the boy, Harry pocketed his wand and held out his arms. "I'll carry him. You look like you'll fall over at any moment. It wouldn't look good for the head of the Malfoy family to fall down the stairs and break his nose."

Although Draco did not smile, his expression softened. "I could lie about how I duelled with the famous Harry Potter and got hurt. A scar one receives in a battle is a badge of honour or some silly nonsense. It's okay. He's not that heavy."

While Harry was not convinced, he held his tongue and accompanied Draco upstairs. The boy was carried into the bedroom opposite Draco's. White sheets shrouded most of the furniture in the room; dust particles danced in the morning light when the curtains were pulled apart. Since Draco had his arms full, Harry cast a few cleaning charms around the room and conjured a new bedspread for the bed.

After putting the boy to bed, Draco held out his hand, hesitated, and patted the boy's head once. The boy smiled in happiness and drifted into a deeper slumber. Like an outsider intruding upon a private conversation between two fragile souls, Harry held his breath and watched on in silence, for fear of destroying the tranquil moment that was as transient as a sand castle.

* * * * * * *

Raindrops drummed on the umbrella as Draco stood behind the front gates and watched Harry Disapparate. The pitter-patter of rain resembled the buzz of thousands of insects, a sound so grating it threatened to drown out every last coherent thought in his head. After letting out a sigh, he retreated into the sanctuary that was his family home.

When the doors slid shut behind him, Draco found himself alone in the manor, with that abomination of a child locked away in the bedroom upstairs, out of sight but not out of mind. Sparing the staircase a glance, he strolled down the hallway beneath the watchful gazes of his predecessors' portraits, their silence as telling as the secrets they kept.

"I know everything," Draco said to no one in particular as he entered the drawing room. "There is no need for all of you to keep up your conspiracy anymore." He stopped in front of his father's portrait and gazed at it. "Isn't that right, Father?"

The portrait of Lucius Malfoy contemplated Draco with cool grey eyes; at length, he opened his mouth. "You surprise me, Draco."

"I know you, Father, better than I did when I was a child." Draco looked away for a moment before fixing his gaze upon his father's painting. "You asked the other portraits not to tell me anything. You wanted me to believe the boy was my son. What do you want me to do with him? Do you want me to use him as a pawn for the sake of restoring our _family honour_?"

"It crossed my mind at first, yes," Lucius Malfoy said in a soft purr that stirred up a nostalgic feeling in Draco. "When I first saw him, I realised he could be the greatest weapon our family would ever possess. Besides, you have already tamed him. Think of all the possibilities and all the doors he could open for you."

There was a vicious glint in Draco's eyes, though he refrained from snapping at his father's portrait. "But you've changed your mind."

Lucius bowed his head, his true feelings hidden beneath a facade of indifference. "Even though you were under his influence, you looked happy. If, even for a while, you can find solace in a dream, I would grant you this much." He peered into Draco's eyes. "Think of it as a father's selfishness."

An indescribable emotion welled up inside Draco and knocked the breath out of him. Clutching his fist, he took a deep breath and collected his thoughts. "Yes, you are selfish. You never ask me what I want." His voice softened to a whisper. "I don't want a substitute for a son I've never met."

"I see." Lucius closed his eyes for some time as though meditating on a problem that could not be solved. "And yet, you desire to keep him in the manor, a prisoner in the house where he was created." He opened his eyes. "Are you not trying to weave your own make-believe?"

"I have no illusion whatsoever," was Draco's reply to his father's portrait. "Beyond that, I don't need to justify myself to you or to my father in real life."

Lucius seemed satisfied with the answer, his lips curling into the same wry smile that appeared at times on Draco's face. "Very well. You are the current head of the family, and you are my son. I, along with our predecessors, shall stand by your decision."

* * * * * * *

The quill screeched to a decisive halt at the end of the sentence, and after the final dot cemented the conclusion, Harry dropped the quill and sat back. Putting the report aside to dry, he got up and checked the time. The hour was later than he had expected; nevertheless, the Minister for Magic should still be in his office. After saying good night to his fellow Aurors, Harry gathered his things and went up to the Minister's office.

Furnished in dark wood and deep coloured fabrics, the office was elegant and modest in design. At the far end of the room stood a sturdy mahogany desk half-buried in a mountain of scrolls; behind the desk hung a Foe-Glass adorned with a tarnished wooden frame. In the Foe-Glass, shadowy figures glided about in the mist, indifferent to the world beyond the glass.

As Harry entered the office, Kingsley Shacklebolt looked up from the scroll he was reading and smiled. "Hello, Harry. It's not often that you come here to visit me. What can I do for you?"

Returning the smile, Harry sat down on the chair offered to him. "Sorry for bothering you when you are busy, Kingsley. There's something I want to talk to you about."

Kingsley must have detected something in Harry's voice, for a frown had appeared between his brows. "It's off the record, isn't it?"

Harry nodded once and divulged everything to Kingsley: rumours surrounding the Witching Woods, mysterious disappearances, a case of self-cannibalism, the discoveries made at Malfoy Manor, the homunculus created by Voldemort, and Draco's role in the messy business. He also showed Kingsley the reports that Marcus Shelley—Witch Watcher for the Ministry of Magic—had submitted to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

When Harry finished his narrative, Kingsley let out a long breath. "No one followed up on the reports, huh? Perhaps there have been too many false alarms in the area. Anyway, we'd have to send people into the forest to recover the bodies."

Harry felt a sting in his chest; other than returning the victims to their families, there was nothing more he could do for them. "I heard that it's easy to become lost in the forest, and it seems the Malfoys have placed enchantments in there to keep people away."

"I'm not surprised," Kingsley muttered, though he did not seem bothered by the information. "Does the boy look a lot like Voldemort?"

"Although the age is different, he looks exactly the same as the eleven-year-old Tom Riddle in Dumbledore's memory. The resemblance doesn't stop there. Mind manipulation, wandless magic and a possible Parselmouth—it's too much of a coincidence."

For a moment, Kingsley was lost in thought. When he surfaced from his musing, there was a sober look on his face. "I know you and Draco Malfoy have a history, and you feel guilty over what happened to Astoria and her baby. Still," he rubbed his bald head, "do you trust him?"

"Yes, I do," Harry replied as he looked into Kingsley's eyes. "I don't think he's lying about the boy. He has nothing to gain by lying. Besides, someone like him wouldn't come up with such a ridiculous lie."

"All right. I'll take your word for it." Kingsley cleared away the rolls of parchment on his desk and got up. "Let's go and meet the mystery boy."

By the time Harry and Kingsley arrived outside the manor, the sky had darkened to a hazy blend of cerulean and grey. After giving Kingsley a moment to survey the surroundings—the dark forest behind them and the manor up ahead—Harry walked with him to the gates. Light shone out from several windows of the manor-house: the only sign of habitation in this secluded land. Before Harry announced their arrival, Draco came out to open the gates for them.

When Draco and Kingsley faced each other, there was no overt display of hostility between them. Kingsley smiled and held out his hand; a beat later, Draco shook hands with him.

"Good evening, Minister," Draco said, his wariness towards the ex-Auror disguised beneath a facade of placidity. "Thank you for coming in person. I assume you have heard the story from Harry?"

Kingsley cast Harry a sidelong glance before turning to Draco once more. "I've heard a story, yes, and I trust that Harry has told me all he knows. But I'm also interested in your story, Mr Malfoy."

"Whatever Harry might have told you, I have nothing more to add." With an elegant gesture befitting of his status as the lord of the manor, Draco motioned for Harry and Kingsley to follow him. "Shall we?"

Darkness had taken reign over the stately prison where the boy was kept, but a sliver of moonlight had crept through the window and left its trail across the floor. Draco conjured two orbs of candlelight on either side of the bed and entered the room; Harry and Kingsley followed close behind him. When Kingsley saw the boy, he could not contain his surprise; nevertheless, he kept his wand in hand and approached the bed as though the boy were a sleeping dragon.

Acting as the Minister's bodyguard, Harry stood beside Kingsley and gazed at Draco, who was observing Kingsley. In the midst of writhing shadows and flickering candlelight, Draco's face had taken on a mask-like quality that disturbed Harry. He had a suspicion that if Kingsley were to raise his wand at the boy, Draco would not hesitate to draw his own wand.

The discussion commenced in the drawing room. At the round walnut table with white marble inlay, Draco offered a seat to Kingsley and sat down opposite him; Harry took the remaining chair between the two men and completed the semicircle. After declining the offer of tea, the Minister dove headlong into the discussion.

"Let me sum up your proposal," Kingsley said while folding his hands together. "You believe you can keep the boy in line, and you intend to let him stay in Malfoy Manor. By default, you will become his guardian." He raised his eyes at Draco. "You do realise that you will be subject to restrictions?"

"I am well aware of that, Minister."

"All right." Kingsley nodded. "Mr Malfoy, I need to ask you one thing. Why are you willing to go through all the trouble for a boy who is unrelated to you and had in fact caused you much trouble?"

"I am waiting for him to die so that I can bury him myself." Draco's voice was mellow, yet his gaze was cold and unyielding. "I won't allow anyone else touch him. If you have decided to execute him, I want to be the one to kill him."

Raising his eyebrows, Kingsley studied Draco for some time as though searching for the soul beneath the expressionless mask. "Because your son is inside him? If we were able to retrieve your son from his body, do you still wish to become the boy's guardian?"

The corner of Draco's lips twisted in wry humour. "Even the dead would be annoyed if you move their bodies from resting place to resting place. My son's body has suffered through enough sacrilege as it is." There was a pause. "The boy is my son's coffin, and he will remain so for the rest of his life. When he dies, I will bury them both."

"I can't say I empathise with your standpoint, and truth be told, I do not trust you." Kingsley bored his eyes into Draco. "However, I will use whatever method necessary to ensure the safety of the wizarding community, and to ensure that innocent Muggles do not fall victims to the dark forces from our world."

"How commendable of you," Draco muttered. "What you meant to say was since I offer to take the load off your shoulder, you will take advantage of it and use me to keep him in line. At the same time, he will become my leash, which means you don't have to worry about the Malfoys causing trouble anymore. That's fine. You are using me as much as I'm using you."

Kingsley smiled. "I'm glad we have reached an understanding. Of course, the Ministry will be responsible for locating the victims and devising a cover story for their families. If there are any survivors, they will be taken to St Mungo's and receive treatment accordingly. As for the boy himself, in order for you to gain custody over him, there are three conditions you must follow.

"One, you must never, under any circumstances, allow him to leave Malfoy Manor. Two, you must, at all cost, prevent him from harming another human being. Three, you must not use him as a weapon against another human being. You will be asked to make an Unbreakable Vow under the aforementioned terms. Will you accept?"

With a solemnity that Harry had rarely seen in him, Draco nodded. "I will."

Those two words pounded on Harry's mind like a knell, for the premonition he had dreaded for the past two days had become reality right before his eyes. With his reply Draco had entwined his fate with the boy's: a bond that will not shatter till death do them part. The very notion of what will befall Draco in the end stole away Harry's breath and what little composure he tried to maintain.

"Draco," Harry spoke up, prompting Draco to look at him, "will this make you happy?"

Draco blinked, and for one heart-rending moment, wistfulness clouded his grey eyes. His lips parted for several beats before his voice came out in a low murmur. "No, it won't. But it will make me feel satisfied."

With a sense of inevitability Harry gazed at Draco and came to his conclusion. If Draco was determined to sink into the swamp, there was only one thing he needed to do. "Kingsley, please let me be the one to make the Unbreakable Vow with Draco."

Although Harry could feel the sting of Draco's gaze, he continued to beseech Kingsley's consent. "I know what the boy is capable of, and I know how to subdue him. If anything happens, I will take full responsibility and stop him at all cost."

"You are more foolish than I thought, Harry," Draco chided in dismay.

"I know." Harry smiled a sheepish smile and turned to Kingsley, who squinted at him as though he had at last discovered the final piece of the puzzle. "Would that be all right?"

"You are serious, huh?" Kingsley rubbed his temple and sighed. "I was going to wait a while, but it seems you two have already decided. You want to do this now?"

Harry nodded; a beat later, Draco did the same. "Okay. I don't see why we should delay this any further." Kingsley took out his wand and got up. "You'd have to kneel and face each other."

Beneath the glittering chandelier, Harry and Draco knelt on the carpet. With ceremony they reached out for each other and clasped their right hands together. Acting as their Bonder and their witness, Kingsley stood over them and touched his wand to their joined hands. Draco's hand was colder than Harry had expected, but his grip was firm and his expression calm.

As Harry watched himself drown in the grey depths of Draco's eyes, his heart was filled with strange satisfaction. The Unbreakable Vow was more binding than a marriage vow, shackles that could not be violated or severed; and the boy would become the chain that bound him to Draco and vice versa.

After taking a moment to think about what he should say, Harry took a deep breath and opened his mouth.

* * * * * * *

With a snap Draco pulled the curtains apart. Grey morning light poured into the bedroom and illuminated the figure on the bed. With his raven hair, alabaster skin and delicate features, the boy resembled the protagonist in a fairy tale: a waif who was lost in a giant's house or a little prince who was caught in a curse. Fast asleep, he seemed unaware of Draco's presence.

His face as expressionless as a volto mask, Draco sat down on the bed, stared at the boy for some time, and shook the boy's shoulder. "It's time to wake up."

The boy's eyelids quivered for several beats and slid open, revealing a pair of dark eyes as unfathomable as the bottom of the sea. As soon as the boy met Draco's gaze, a radiant smile spread across his face. "Good morning, Draco."

"Good morning," Draco said in a quiet voice as the boy sat up and stretched his back. "From now on, you'll be living in the manor with me. You don't need to leave the manor anymore. I'll be staying here with you. I might go out sometimes, but I won't be away for too long."

With wide eyes the boy stared at Draco for several beats. His face was about to break into a smile when anxiety made a furrow between his brows. "But I need to feed my friend. He hasn't eaten anything for a long time. If I don't feed him everyday, he can't move."

A vision flashed across Draco's mind. In the shabby hut built by a child who only had a vague notion of what a house looked like, two pitiful creatures huddled together and watched winter rain fall from the sky. In the end, one boy survived and the other boy fell into an eternal sleep.

Melancholy lingered in Draco's heart like a ghost, but he did not let his emotion spill onto his face. "He's going home to his parents, and they will take care of him. You won't be able to see him again, but he'll be fine. Don't worry about him."

The boy searched for the truth in Draco's eyes, and Draco let him. In the next moment, the boy slumped his shoulders in despondence. "I'll miss him."

Draco did not comfort the boy; instead, he dropped a pile of neatly folded clothes in the boy's lap. "These clothes belonged to me when I was a child. They should fit you." He paused as the boy shook off his sadness and examined the clothes in curiosity. "Can you get dressed by yourself?"

The boy nodded and got out of bed. While the boy got dressed, Draco took out his wand and made the bed: the wrinkles on the bedspread smoothed themselves out; the pillow puffed up and reverted to its original shape; the blanket hovered in the air for several seconds and spread itself out across the bed. When the boy was done, Draco knelt down and took a critical look at him.

"There's one more thing," Draco said as he fixed the hem of the jumper. "Harry is my friend. He's not going to eat you, and he promised me that he won't try to take me away from you again. Be nice to him, all right? Don't look into his mind. He doesn't like that."

A dark look passed across the boy's face; in the next beat, his sullenness vanished. "If you say so, Draco." He beamed at Draco as though the previous conversation did not happen. "What are we going to do today?"

Draco stood up and charmed the boy's shirt to fold itself. "What do you want to do?"

In nimble steps the boy glided around Draco like a butterfly in play. "Let's have a tea party in the fairy ring, where it is always time for tea. Sandwiches and scones and tea pastries; clotted cream and rose petal jelly; Assam and Earl Grey and Darjeeling." With a glitter in his eye he looked up at Draco and crooked his head to one side. "Which one will be to your liking?"

Bemused by the improvised nursery rhyme, Draco cast the boy a curious glance. "The manor doesn't have a fairy ring, but we can have a tea party."

The boy blinked as though unable to believe that his whimsical request would be granted. As a childlike smile appeared on his face, he grabbed Draco's hand. "Draco, are you happy?"

Taken aback, Draco squinted at the boy, whose hand emitted no human warmth. If the boy had wanted to, he could have looked into Draco's mind and found the answer, and yet he did not do so.

Clutching the boy's hand, Draco replied, "I'm not unhappy."

Standing outside the half-closed door, Harry overheard everything. As his mood grew pensive, his eyes roamed from the dark wood wainscot panelling to the luxurious carpet extending to the other end of the hallway. Works of art adorned the walls and display tables, yet the hallway could not look more empty and cold.

Leaning his shoulder against the door frame, Harry hugged his arms and let out a long breath. Although Draco claimed that the boy regarded him as his master, Harry suspected he was only telling part of the truth. In the boy's mind, Draco was not someone whose orders he must obey: Draco was someone he loved.

The lost boy would no longer return to the Witching Woods. From the moment Draco caught him in his arms, the tale of the lost boy had reached the end. Neither Harry nor Draco knew how long the boy would last: weeks, months or years. Would he succumb completely to his hunger first, or would his body break down first? Whichever the case might be, the ending had already been decided for him.

The boy would dwell in this gilded cage of a manor with his aloof keeper; his favourite song would be their common language; and his little games would be the precious moments they shared—until the day this sugar-coated dream of his came to its inevitable end.

* * * * * * *

When Harry stepped out of the house with Draco, a world of hazy white awaited him. Heavy mist enveloped the desolate garden like a shroud preserving the dignity of the dead. He could see nothing ahead of him but vaporous white; he could hear nothing other than the sound of shoes crunching on dry leaves and gravel.

As they strolled down the driveway towards the direction of the gates, Harry gazed at Draco's profile. The calmness upon Draco's wan face reminded him of the moment the Unbreakable Vow was made: fiery ribbons coiling around their joined hands like chains.

Harry felt a tingling in his right hand, but he ignored the sensation and turned his mind towards the final riddle he had yet to solve. "There's something I want to ask you."

The footsteps stopped, and the garden was plunged into stifling silence. Lost in thought, Draco stared into the mist. "What is it?"

"You said you could hear a voice in your head. I don't know how the boy did it, but he probably used a combination of Legilimency and the Imperius Curse? You know Occlumency, and you said you can shake off an Imperius Curse while you are awake. Although you didn't know what was going on, you knew someone or something was playing with your mind.

"If you wanted to, you might have been able to shut him out. Was it because you couldn't do it? Or was it because you didn't want to do it?"

Harry waited for Draco to tell his story, but there was no response. "Back then in the book shop, were you really looking for a way to get rid of the thing that was haunting the manor? Or were you looking for a way to capture it so that you can keep it with you in the manor?"

Once the last of Harry's words was swallowed by the mist, silence returned. At length, Draco tilted his head and met Harry's gaze, his lips curling into a bitter smile. In the garden where decay was hidden behind a satin veil, his smile seemed strangely unreal.

"Even though I wanted to, I couldn't shut him out," Draco said in a low voice. "But you weren't entirely wrong. Perhaps a part of me wanted to believe my son was talking to me. I just wanted to take a look at the being that was haunting the manor, so that I could stop dreaming about my son. But the truth turned out to be more complicated than I thought. That's how it is."

Turning away from Harry, Draco strode on ahead and vanished into the embrace of the mist. As a trickle of fear crept into the cracks of Harry's heart, he clenched his right hand and caught up with Draco. "Sorry. I've been asking you too many personal questions."

"It doesn't matter anymore. It's over—for the most part. I'm finally awake." There was a pensive look on Draco's face. "Besides, you have the right to know. You are my partner in crime."

Harry's heart skipped a beat. Everything that had happened for the past few days flashed across his mind in a chaotic vision. He had become the keeper of Draco's many secrets; and together with Draco he would safeguard another secret—the boy whose existence must not be made known to the wizarding world. In the truest sense Harry had become Draco's partner in crime.

In the menagerie that was Malfoy Manor, there was only one thing Harry needed to say. "I know."

The gates came into view in their impressive glory. Beyond the wrought-iron bars, a silhouette of yew hedges led the way into the void, the end of which lay the forest that was devoured by the fog. Harry imagined he could see the faint outline of a shadow, neither looming nor languishing, an ancient presence that had kept the secrets of the living and the dead.

Without a sound the gates swung open of their own accord, but Harry did not cross the threshold. "Say, Draco, will I be invited to the tea party?"

"You were eavesdropping again," Draco murmured, though he did not seem annoyed. "I suppose we'll have a late night tea party instead." In the next beat, the facade of nonchalance fell away. "I said I'll give you something when this is over. Have you given it any thought?"

Taken aback, Harry felt a flutter in his stomach, for he had forgotten about Draco's promise. "It's all right. I already have what I wanted."

His eyes narrowed, Draco took a deep breath and rubbed his right hand, as though he could sense the tug of the invisible chain. "I'm not as oblivious as you think I am, Harry. Or are you going to tell me that you helped me out of pity? Guilt? Duty? Compassion?"

Draco's words pierced into Harry like a scalpel and sliced apart the cocoon protecting his heart. The secret he had kept in the message bottle was spilling out before his eye. However easy it would be to deny Draco's claim, to lie would be akin to condemning the precious feelings he had for Draco. Conceding defeat, he gave himself over to the bittersweet drug named yearning.

With his right hand Harry reached out and touched Draco's face, his finger brushing over Draco's eyelid. Yielding to his silent request, Draco relaxed and closed his eyes. His touch light and gentle as though handling fragile glass, Harry ran his thumb over the shadow beneath Draco's eye, hoping beyond forlorn hope that he could somehow erase the stain on the translucent skin.

Exploring further, his fingers trailed down Draco's cheek and lingered over the blemished skin. Harry could not help but marvel at how warm Draco was in spite of the cold exterior he projected. As his eyes fell upon Draco's mouth, his fingers slid downwards and reached the final destination. Draco's lips quivered against his fingers, feathery kisses that took away the last of Harry's trepidation.

Harry moved closer to Draco, who tensed up but remained where he was. Ever so slowly he held Draco's face between his palms and showered him with light kisses: on the brow, on the eyelids, on both cheeks and on the mouth. His chest aching for reasons he could not discern, Harry lingered on Draco's lips for several heartbeats and pulled away.

It was enough, Harry told himself as Draco opened his eyes to look at him. Everything that had happened in this garden on this day would be their little secret; and the mist around them—the sole witness to their secret—would fade away into the light.

"Other than this, I only have one other request," Harry whispered as he fought the urge to brush away the blond hair on Draco's brow. "Let me love you."

Draco stared at Harry as though beholding a mad man, yet there was a self-depreciating smile on his lips. "I'm not a good man, Harry. Don't you think that I might make use of your feelings and take advantage of you?"

An inexplicable feeling washed over Harry and sent a thrill down his spine; nevertheless, out of uncertainty came a moment of clarity. The brat who once tormented Harry over trifling rivalry was no longer here; in his place was a man who was at once delicate and strong, crafty yet gentle in his own sardonic way.

A contradiction coated in cynicism, a bleeding heart encrusted in ice, madness wrapped in a cloak of rationality, and darkness stemmed from anger and sadness—he would accept everything that made up this man named Draco Malfoy.

"If that happens, I'll think of something," Harry said quietly before he smiled at Draco, who was peering at him with a strange look on his face. "See you tonight. I'm looking forward to the mad tea party."

His grey eyes clouded by mist and emotions, Draco nodded. There was nothing more left to say; Harry smiled one more time, passed the gates and left the manor behind him.

The mist had begun to thin; Harry could see the leaden sky above him and the giant dark blot that was the Witching Woods in the distance. After taking a deep breath to quiet down the storm raging inside him, he took out his wand and prepared himself for Apparition.

He heard a voice. Straining his ear, he thought at first that the boy was singing again; in the next beat, he realised someone was calling his name. With a start he turned around; nevertheless, the mist had fallen over Malfoy Manor, and Draco's figure could not be seen anymore.

* * * * * * *

_Finis._

**Author's Note:**

>  **Content/warnings:** This story contains mention of torture, miscarriage and cannibalism, but nothing graphic.
> 
> Thanks for reading! All comments are extremely welcome either here or on Livejournal.
> 
> A/N: An extensive author's note can be found [here](http://lee-bella.livejournal.com/610408.html).


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